During the 20th century, Iran lived with a totalitarian government directly controlled by the Reza Pahlevi dynasty. During the 1930s, this new government decided to move away from the political influence of the Russians and British to approach the totalitarian regime of the Germans. With the outbreak of World War II (1939 - 1945), the Iranian political position ended up being opposed by the allied troops, who decided to invade the Persian nation.
As a result, a process of political renewal took place in Iran that brought that country closer to Western countries. However, the Shiite religious predominance organized a strong opposition movement that came to fight against the process of westernization of the country's practices and institutions. In 1977, this movement managed to promote the return of conservative Aitaolá Ruholá Khomeini, who would later transform the country into a theocratic state.
The consolidation of the government of Aitaollah Khomeini came to represent a threat to the political and economic interests of the United States and Iraq, its neighboring country. Such opposition began when the Iranian government itself decided to cut its diplomatic and economic relations with the United States. As a result, the US government lost one of its most important allies and oil suppliers throughout the Middle East.
Through such an impasse, the US started to strengthen relations with Iraq aiming at the outbreak of a war that could overthrow the Iranian Islamic regime. At the time, Saddam Hussein used an unjustified dispute for control of the Chatt-el-Arab channel, through which both countries carried out the sale of their products. Through Iran's refusal to give up the territories, Saddam decided to invade Iranian space and destroy one of the largest refineries in the world.
While the Iranians carried out attacks against the interventionist action of the Saddam Hussein regime, the US and other Sunni-oriented Arab nations militarily supported the Iraqi forces. In the meantime, the Kurdish minority living in Iraq took advantage of the unstable period to wage war against the dictator Saddam Hussein in hopes of establishing an independent government in the region. However, the foreign military reinforcement served to promote the genocide of this notorious ethnic minority.
The outbreak of this parallel conflict allowed the Iranians to resist for eight years against the political and economic intentions of their main enemies. The prolonging of the fights ended up wearing out both sides of the conflict and with that, following the UN guidance, signed a ceasefire that preserved the same territorial limits prior to the war. In this way, more than 700,000 lives were taken so that there would not be any kind of change that would end the impasse.
After that, several Arab countries decided to reconnect with the Iranian government, respecting its regime and its rulers. On the other hand, Saddam Hussein ended up losing US military support, which also gave up indirectly intervening in the Middle East political scene. A few years later, Saddam's interventionist project would come into conflict with the interests of the Americans themselves, when the so-called Gulf War began.
By Rainer Sousa
Graduated in History
Brazil School Team
20th century - wars - Brazil School
Source: Brazil School - https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/guerras/guerra-irairaque.htm