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Osprey Essential Histories #20
The Iran–Iraq War 1980–1988
The Iran-Iraq War, which ended in August 1988, one month short of its eighth anniversary, was one of the longest, bloodiest and costliest Third World armed conflicts in the twentieth century. Professor Karsh addresses the causes of the Iran-Iraq War, unpacking the objectives of the two belligerents and examining how far objectives were matched by strategy. He assesses the war's military lessons regarding such key areas as strategy, tactics and escalation and in particular the use of non-conventional weapons, Finally, he examines the utility of armed force as an instrument of foreign policy.
138 pages, Kindle Edition
First published December 1, 1989
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310 people want to read
About the author
Efraim Karsh
64 books30 followersEfraim Karsh is director of the Middle East Forum, editor of the Middle East Quarterly, and Professor of Middle East and Mediterranean Studies at King's College London.
Born and raised in Israel, Mr. Karsh earned his undergraduate degree in Arabic language and literature and modern Middle Eastern history from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and his graduate and doctoral degrees in international relations from Tel Aviv University. After acquiring his first academic degree, he served for seven years as an intelligence officer in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), where he attained the rank of major.
Prior to coming to King's in 1989, Mr. Karsh held various academic posts at Columbia University, the Sorbonne, the London School of Economics, Helsinki University, the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, the Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies in Washington D.C., and the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel-Aviv University. In 2003 he was the first Nahshon Visiting Professor in Israel Studies at Harvard.
Mr. Karsh has published extensively on the Middle East, strategic and military affairs, and European neutrality. He is the author of fifteen books, including Palestine Betrayed (Yale); Islamic Imperialism: A History (Yale); Empires of the Sand: the Struggle for Mastery in the Middle East 1798-1923 (Harvard); Fabricating Israeli History: The "New Historians" (Routledge); The Gulf Conflict 1990-1991 (Princeton); Saddam Hussein (Free Press); Arafat's War (Grove); and Neutrality and Small States (Routledge).
Mr. Karsh has appeared as a commentator on all the main British and American television networks and has contributed over 100 articles to leading newspapers and magazines, including Commentary, The Daily Telegraph, The International Herald Tribune, The London Times, The Los Angeles Times, The New Republic, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal.
He has served on many academic and professional boards; has acted as referee for numerous scholarly journals, publishers, and grant awarding organizations; has consulted the British Ministry of Defence and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, as well as national and international economic companies/organizations; and has briefed several parliamentary committees. A recent CENTCOM directory of Centers of Excellence on the Middle East ranked Mr. Karsh as the fifth highly quoted academic among 20 top published authors on the Middle East, with his articles quoted three times as often as the best of the four non-American scholars on the list.
He is founding editor of the scholarly journal Israel Affairs, now in its sixteenth year, and founding general editor of a Routledge book series on Israeli History, Politics and Society.
(meforum.org)
Born and raised in Israel, Mr. Karsh earned his undergraduate degree in Arabic language and literature and modern Middle Eastern history from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and his graduate and doctoral degrees in international relations from Tel Aviv University. After acquiring his first academic degree, he served for seven years as an intelligence officer in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), where he attained the rank of major.
Prior to coming to King's in 1989, Mr. Karsh held various academic posts at Columbia University, the Sorbonne, the London School of Economics, Helsinki University, the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, the Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies in Washington D.C., and the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel-Aviv University. In 2003 he was the first Nahshon Visiting Professor in Israel Studies at Harvard.
Mr. Karsh has published extensively on the Middle East, strategic and military affairs, and European neutrality. He is the author of fifteen books, including Palestine Betrayed (Yale); Islamic Imperialism: A History (Yale); Empires of the Sand: the Struggle for Mastery in the Middle East 1798-1923 (Harvard); Fabricating Israeli History: The "New Historians" (Routledge); The Gulf Conflict 1990-1991 (Princeton); Saddam Hussein (Free Press); Arafat's War (Grove); and Neutrality and Small States (Routledge).
Mr. Karsh has appeared as a commentator on all the main British and American television networks and has contributed over 100 articles to leading newspapers and magazines, including Commentary, The Daily Telegraph, The International Herald Tribune, The London Times, The Los Angeles Times, The New Republic, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal.
He has served on many academic and professional boards; has acted as referee for numerous scholarly journals, publishers, and grant awarding organizations; has consulted the British Ministry of Defence and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, as well as national and international economic companies/organizations; and has briefed several parliamentary committees. A recent CENTCOM directory of Centers of Excellence on the Middle East ranked Mr. Karsh as the fifth highly quoted academic among 20 top published authors on the Middle East, with his articles quoted three times as often as the best of the four non-American scholars on the list.
He is founding editor of the scholarly journal Israel Affairs, now in its sixteenth year, and founding general editor of a Routledge book series on Israeli History, Politics and Society.
(meforum.org)
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Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews
March 27, 2017
Interesting overview of a very long and hard war. Would have enjoyed more detail in some places but the briefness is to be expected given the publication. Some interesting first hand accounts and interviews were provided (particularly the Kurdish survivor and 2 different Iranian 'Boy Soldiers'). An interesting thought was raised in the form of Iraq's use of gas on both military and civilian targets, the West didnt seem to mind all that much when it benefited them and their aims. I suppose they viewed the use of gas as the lesser evil when compared to radical Islam.
January 24, 2016
The Osprey Essential Histories series (which I'd never heard of) consists of very small (100 pages) descriptive and analytical accounts, some by quite competent historians, of (mostly) minor and often forgetten wars -- some of which, however, are hardly of small significance.
The Iran-Iraq War was one of those events that I had paid little attention to -- I was in graduate school at the time -- and which I remembered, when I saw this volume, that I knew nothing about apart from those images of Iranian children walking into machine gun fire.
It turns out that it was hardly a minor war, as it led *directly* to Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait in 1990, and thus to the first (and so, to the second) Gulf/Iraqi war. The book is pretty good.
I'm now reading one from the Osprey series on the Soviet-Afghan War...
Another nice thing, apart from their brevity and general sobriety, is that they sell for only $1.49 on Kindle. So ignore the prices in the list below.
Here is the full list:
https://ospreypublishing.com/store/mi...
The Iran-Iraq War was one of those events that I had paid little attention to -- I was in graduate school at the time -- and which I remembered, when I saw this volume, that I knew nothing about apart from those images of Iranian children walking into machine gun fire.
It turns out that it was hardly a minor war, as it led *directly* to Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait in 1990, and thus to the first (and so, to the second) Gulf/Iraqi war. The book is pretty good.
I'm now reading one from the Osprey series on the Soviet-Afghan War...
Another nice thing, apart from their brevity and general sobriety, is that they sell for only $1.49 on Kindle. So ignore the prices in the list below.
Here is the full list:
https://ospreypublishing.com/store/mi...
August 20, 2020
A perfect book by Efraim Karsh, a British-Israeli historian, giving an objective illustrated narration of the longest, bloodiest and costliest war in the Third World in the twentieth century, with an amazing analysis of its objectives, "gains", battles, socioeconomic impacts, the geopolitics surrounding it, as well as a window on the civilian's suffering in both countries, the Kurds in Iraq and the boy soldiers in Iran. It contains a great chronology of the war and a window on its final consequences "Kuwait". It will shows how Iran started interfering in Iraq's affairs, Iraq invaded Iran as a limited war – proved to be wrong – and how Iran refused to end the war. It will show the use of non-conventional weapons, the wars of cities and tankers. I liked the book and it gave me a better understanding of a war I was born the day it ended. I think it is a must read for every Iraqi.
Quotes:
- In June 1979 the revolutionary regime began publicly urging the Iraqi population to rise up and overthrow the secular Ba'th regime, which had governed Iraq since the summer of 1968. A few months later Tehran escalated its campaign by resuming support for the Iraqi Kurds (which had been suspended in 1975), providing aid to underground Shi'ite movements in Iraq and initiating terrorist attacks against prominent Iraqi officials. These reached their peak on 1 April 1980 with a failed attempt on the life of the Iraqi Deputy Premier, Tariq Aziz, while he was making a public speech in Baghdad. Two weeks later, the Iraqi Minister of Information, Latif Nusseif al-Jasim, narrowly escaped a similar attempt. In April alone, at least 20 Iraqi officials were killed in bomb attacks by Shi'ite underground organisations.
- Due to the world oil boom in 1979 and 1980, the Iraqi economy enjoyed unprecedented prosperity. Oil export revenues rose from $1 billion in 1972 to $21 billion in 1979 and $26 billion in 1980. During the months preceding the war, these revenues were running at an annual rate of $33 billion, enabling the regime to carry out ambitious development programmes.
- Yet, in the face of the growing evidence of Iran's real agenda, the Iraqis became increasingly reluctant to live in the shadow of the Iranian threat. The revolutionary regime in Tehran was nothing like anything they had met before. The Shah, for all his military power and ambitious designs, was viewed as unpleasant but rational. Certainly his goals were opposed to Iraqi national interests, and their satisfaction came necessarily at Iraq's expense. However, he did not seek to remove the Ba'th regime, and was amenable to peaceful co-existence once his objectives had been achieved.
- Only after the Iranians struck non-military targets did the Iraqis respond in kind.
- Ambitious development plans which had commenced prior to the war went ahead, and public spending rose from $21 billion in 1980 to $29.5 billion in 1982. The lion's share of this expanded budget (up from only $13.9 billion in 1980) was spent on civilian imports to prevent commodity shortages.
- Baghdad was being transformed at a feverish pace from a medieval into a modern city.
- True, the status quo powers can hardly relax: religious radicalism is subdued but not eradicated. Rooted in the region's millenarian Islamic tradition, and reinforced by the wider Third World trend to seek refuge in religion from the alienating forces of modernisation, Islamic fundamentalism did not originate in the Iranian Revolution and neither do its fortunes depend exclusively on domestic developments within Iran. Yet, considering that Iran has been the foremost standard bearer of political Islam since the demise of the Ottoman Empire, its actions and inaction are likely to play an important role in the vicissitudes of this phenomenon. And in this respect there is little doubt that the Iran-Iraq War exerted a profoundly sobering and moderating influence.
#GilgameshNabeel
Quotes:
- In June 1979 the revolutionary regime began publicly urging the Iraqi population to rise up and overthrow the secular Ba'th regime, which had governed Iraq since the summer of 1968. A few months later Tehran escalated its campaign by resuming support for the Iraqi Kurds (which had been suspended in 1975), providing aid to underground Shi'ite movements in Iraq and initiating terrorist attacks against prominent Iraqi officials. These reached their peak on 1 April 1980 with a failed attempt on the life of the Iraqi Deputy Premier, Tariq Aziz, while he was making a public speech in Baghdad. Two weeks later, the Iraqi Minister of Information, Latif Nusseif al-Jasim, narrowly escaped a similar attempt. In April alone, at least 20 Iraqi officials were killed in bomb attacks by Shi'ite underground organisations.
- Due to the world oil boom in 1979 and 1980, the Iraqi economy enjoyed unprecedented prosperity. Oil export revenues rose from $1 billion in 1972 to $21 billion in 1979 and $26 billion in 1980. During the months preceding the war, these revenues were running at an annual rate of $33 billion, enabling the regime to carry out ambitious development programmes.
- Yet, in the face of the growing evidence of Iran's real agenda, the Iraqis became increasingly reluctant to live in the shadow of the Iranian threat. The revolutionary regime in Tehran was nothing like anything they had met before. The Shah, for all his military power and ambitious designs, was viewed as unpleasant but rational. Certainly his goals were opposed to Iraqi national interests, and their satisfaction came necessarily at Iraq's expense. However, he did not seek to remove the Ba'th regime, and was amenable to peaceful co-existence once his objectives had been achieved.
- Only after the Iranians struck non-military targets did the Iraqis respond in kind.
- Ambitious development plans which had commenced prior to the war went ahead, and public spending rose from $21 billion in 1980 to $29.5 billion in 1982. The lion's share of this expanded budget (up from only $13.9 billion in 1980) was spent on civilian imports to prevent commodity shortages.
- Baghdad was being transformed at a feverish pace from a medieval into a modern city.
- True, the status quo powers can hardly relax: religious radicalism is subdued but not eradicated. Rooted in the region's millenarian Islamic tradition, and reinforced by the wider Third World trend to seek refuge in religion from the alienating forces of modernisation, Islamic fundamentalism did not originate in the Iranian Revolution and neither do its fortunes depend exclusively on domestic developments within Iran. Yet, considering that Iran has been the foremost standard bearer of political Islam since the demise of the Ottoman Empire, its actions and inaction are likely to play an important role in the vicissitudes of this phenomenon. And in this respect there is little doubt that the Iran-Iraq War exerted a profoundly sobering and moderating influence.
#GilgameshNabeel
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April 12, 2023Yet ANOTHER dissertation book
June 15, 2021
A critical analysis of the reality on the eve of the war, the tactics employed and the rationale of the foreign policies that shaped the conflict.
July 13, 2013
Really enjoyed reading it, I loved that it has no bias and even mentioned that some historians believe the conflict goes even as deep as the Arab vs Persians conflict which has existed far before the drawing of the nations. Woop.
December 14, 2018
The second book I have read by the author (review forthcoming), this is the first book that I have ever seen in a library relating to this war. Although the Iran-Iraq war was an immensely destructive war that helped to cement the rivalry between Shi'ite and Sunni Muslims over control of the Middle East, the author notes correctly that no one goes to this war looking for either tactical or strategic lessons on how to fight. Indeed, neither side of this war comes off looking particularly good. Despite having a far stronger demographic position, Iran's attempts to purge its army of the Shah's adherents on the eve of war gave it an appearance of weakness that provoked the opportunistic attacks of one of the 20th century's less successful military dictators in Saddam Hussein. Moreover, once the Iranians went on the attack and attempted to knock the Iraqis out of the war, their unimaginative human wave frontal assaults killed tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of their youth and jeopardized the survival of the Iranian revolutionary regime, leading to a status quo antebellum that left both sides far worse off than if they had managed to make peace at the beginning.
This particular book does a good job of providing a worthwhile account of a pointless and immensely destructive war. Beginning with the background to war in the recent struggles between Iran and Iraq over control of Iraq's only outlet to the sea, the author moves on to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of each side in the run-up to the conflict. The author looks at the outbreak of war in the surprise Iraqi invasion and the limited objectives that Iraq had from the war before looking at the delicate balance of incompetence that marked the war throughout. The author gives a portrait of a prisoner of war, one of Iran's child soldiers, and later provides a portrait of the destruction of a village by Iraqi barbarity. There are discussions of the effects of the war on other nations, and the poisoned chalice that the ceasefire that ended the war represented to Iranians who believed that they would crush Iraq and demonstrate the strength of their regime and its religious worldview, while pointing out the utter futility of the war in terms of its conclusion and consequences, making this book a remarkably downbeat part of a series on modern warfare.
And it is that futility that marks the most obvious takeaway from the book. By all rights, the war should never have begun in the first place. Had Iraq been aware of and conscious of its demographic limitations, it would never have provoked war, and if Iran had been aware of the stark limitations of its tactical strength in battle, it would not have been so quick to reject Iraq's calls for ceasefire as soon as Iraq's armies were pushed out. Instead of having a short and sharp war of the kind that made the 18th century somewhat infamous among military historians or that marked the warfare of the Italian city-states of the Renaissance, what we got instead was a war that provoked a great degree of death and destruction on the level of modern warfare, with a 'total war' approach to oil, a recourse to chemical warfare against both foreign and domestic enemies on the side of Iraq, all for the nonexistent gains that marked the warfare of the period between the Thirty Years' war and the Napoleonic Wars. Suffice it to say that neither side got anything worthwhile out of the war, and the destruction suffered by both has continued to affect their political and geopolitical standing to this day.
This particular book does a good job of providing a worthwhile account of a pointless and immensely destructive war. Beginning with the background to war in the recent struggles between Iran and Iraq over control of Iraq's only outlet to the sea, the author moves on to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of each side in the run-up to the conflict. The author looks at the outbreak of war in the surprise Iraqi invasion and the limited objectives that Iraq had from the war before looking at the delicate balance of incompetence that marked the war throughout. The author gives a portrait of a prisoner of war, one of Iran's child soldiers, and later provides a portrait of the destruction of a village by Iraqi barbarity. There are discussions of the effects of the war on other nations, and the poisoned chalice that the ceasefire that ended the war represented to Iranians who believed that they would crush Iraq and demonstrate the strength of their regime and its religious worldview, while pointing out the utter futility of the war in terms of its conclusion and consequences, making this book a remarkably downbeat part of a series on modern warfare.
And it is that futility that marks the most obvious takeaway from the book. By all rights, the war should never have begun in the first place. Had Iraq been aware of and conscious of its demographic limitations, it would never have provoked war, and if Iran had been aware of the stark limitations of its tactical strength in battle, it would not have been so quick to reject Iraq's calls for ceasefire as soon as Iraq's armies were pushed out. Instead of having a short and sharp war of the kind that made the 18th century somewhat infamous among military historians or that marked the warfare of the Italian city-states of the Renaissance, what we got instead was a war that provoked a great degree of death and destruction on the level of modern warfare, with a 'total war' approach to oil, a recourse to chemical warfare against both foreign and domestic enemies on the side of Iraq, all for the nonexistent gains that marked the warfare of the period between the Thirty Years' war and the Napoleonic Wars. Suffice it to say that neither side got anything worthwhile out of the war, and the destruction suffered by both has continued to affect their political and geopolitical standing to this day.
December 29, 2016
This book does a fine job of explaining the reasons behind the war (bizarre though they were) and the general progression, key moments, and outcomes of the war. Karsh writes clearly and concisely, and this volume would be ideal for any looking for a brief overview of why the war was fought, when/where it was fought, and the political situations around the world during the time of the war. However, if you're expecting the same sort of detailed analyses and in-depth examinations of military decisions and individual battles, this volume will disappoint. Either due to lack of space or a different focus, Karsh breezes by most of the important battles here, providing very little detail or analyses of the armies or their leaders.
This book does highlight the brutality and horror of this war, probably more so than other Essential Histories. From a section on the use of children soldiers by Iran to the gassing of Iraqi Kurds by Saddam, there are some hard to believe, incredibly awful accountings here. These include pictures of dead soldiers and even one of a dead Kurdish baby.. Troubling to say the least, and brings the reality of war into focus. Neither side here acted like the "good guys", but more like stubborn and power-hungry psychopaths with no regard for the lives they ruined. All in all, a very sad excerpt from our world's history.
This book serves its role, but lacks in the level of detail on military action that is expected from Essential Histories.
This book does highlight the brutality and horror of this war, probably more so than other Essential Histories. From a section on the use of children soldiers by Iran to the gassing of Iraqi Kurds by Saddam, there are some hard to believe, incredibly awful accountings here. These include pictures of dead soldiers and even one of a dead Kurdish baby.. Troubling to say the least, and brings the reality of war into focus. Neither side here acted like the "good guys", but more like stubborn and power-hungry psychopaths with no regard for the lives they ruined. All in all, a very sad excerpt from our world's history.
This book serves its role, but lacks in the level of detail on military action that is expected from Essential Histories.
June 21, 2022
It's short length forces most topics to be covered quickly but the content is relatively dense and stretches over almost all aspects of the war.
Can definitely recommend it for a solid introduction and functional understanding of the Iran-Iraq war though.
If you believe that the author's national background leads to an inherent bias and distorts the information: you're somewhat right. Heart-pulling narrative sections are added in to stress the impact of the war and brutality of both sides, but ignoring those brief narrative sections, the text overall was pretty reliable.
Can definitely recommend it for a solid introduction and functional understanding of the Iran-Iraq war though.
If you believe that the author's national background leads to an inherent bias and distorts the information: you're somewhat right. Heart-pulling narrative sections are added in to stress the impact of the war and brutality of both sides, but ignoring those brief narrative sections, the text overall was pretty reliable.
October 31, 2017
A brief yet concise book about the Iran-Iraq war with a motivating background to what led to it. One interesting fact is that Iran received military assistance from Israel during the weapon embargo in order to counter the Iraqi military might at that time. The author ends his book with a motivation to the first gulf war and how the economic frustration of Saddam Hussein led to his invasion to Kuwait. Recommended read.
December 11, 2020
A decent book for its size, though there appears to be a tiny amount of bias in favor of Iraq. The most significant omission is the Iran-Contra affair. Plus, this book is from 2002, before the fall of Saddam, if that is of any import to you.
October 3, 2017
Osprey's Essential Histories line is a very good line for a someone who just wants to the basics of historical conflict or to be used as a primer to have a working knowledge of a conflict before reading a more detailed book about it. This one holds up to that design.
July 26, 2022
Lugesin 2010.a ilmunud eestikeelset väljaannet (Karsh, Efraim. Iraani-Iraagi sõda 1980-1988. Inglise keelest tõlkinud Margus Elings; toimetanud Kuldar Traks; kujundanud Arvo Haav. Ilmunud Tallinn, Koolibri, 2010).
March 1, 2024
A thorough overview of the long-running conflict. Karsh emphasizes the strategic miscalculations that led to the war and the organizational and ideological failings that led to horrific casualties for minimal results.
June 2, 2017
Concise and informative account of the longest Third World conflict of the 20th Century.
May 30, 2025
I knew little about this war and found Karsh's work engaging and informative.
March 24, 2015
A good overview/intro to the topic
Very to the point and concise as far as the war itself is concerned. Also provides insight into other topic of the war like child soldiers and the persecution of the Kurds. I think a little bit more background information regarding the lead up to the war would have been nice, otherwise a great read.
Very to the point and concise as far as the war itself is concerned. Also provides insight into other topic of the war like child soldiers and the persecution of the Kurds. I think a little bit more background information regarding the lead up to the war would have been nice, otherwise a great read.
November 25, 2016
Another good edition in the Essential Histories series by Osprey. The Iran-Iraq war clearly can't be covered in 100 pages in full detail but this shows the major movements involved and some of the political and social aspects around the war.
Very interesting indeed.
Very interesting indeed.
Read
January 13, 2011Good read. Like the quick coverage format by Osprey. Good primer.
Read
July 25, 2011More complicated than I supposed after talks with my Iranian pals.
April 28, 2015
Very interesting book with lots details about the war and what both regimes were thinking at that time.
February 15, 2016
A clear synopsis of a conflict that has on-going ramifications throughout the Middle East
August 19, 2015
Poorly written, unappealing, boring. A dry report of facts, no tactical details, no substance.
March 29, 2016
Full of lies, blandly written, too concise. Just an awful piece of non-factual anti-Iranian crap.
Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews