Weird take considering most of Saddam’s military was in fact Russian supplied. Russia continued to supply Saddam thru the war and after.
1) Iraq used heavy weapons made in France and Brazil as well.
2) Support does not only take the form of weapons supplies. Iraq enjoyed live satellite imagery, supplies of precursors to manufacture chemical weapons, a US veto at the UNSC blocking a resolution meant to condemn Iraqi WMD use, and more courtesy of the west.
This should be common knowledge to Iranians.
_____
Arming Iraq: A Chronology of U.S. Involvement
By: John King, March 2003
https://www.iranchamber.com/history/articles/arming_iraq.php
The Iran-Iraq War: Serving American Interests
By: The Research Unit for Political Economy (R.U.P.E.), Mumbai (Bombay), India
Iranian Historical & Cultural Information Center
www.iranchamber.com
Yet you attribute “0” deaths to Russia. Quite surprising. Like I said misleading data by you used to support your thesis.
Russia was not a sovereign state on the international stage. The USSR was. However, the Soviet Union wasn't part of the discussion at hand.
Incorrect. Saddam was thinking purely for his self interest of securing Iran’s most productive oil regions.
Doesn't mean he didn't receive assurances of support from his international backers.
Again incorrect, Saddam was angry at Kuwait because they refused to wipe his 5B+ debt he owed them when they gave him funding (alongside Saudi Arabia’s much bigger amount) to continue his war with Iran. Saddam used the debt along with baseless lies of Kuwaiti oil disputes to justify his invasion.
What I indicated does not contradict any of this. Saddam had his motivations, but the American ambassador to Kuwait misled him into believing the US would not react forcefully to an Iraqi occupation of Kuwait. This is a documented occurrence.
Washington had been moving forces in place for months. Saddam himself ended the negotiations.
Here you're mixing two different subjects. The US ambassador to Kuwait, April Glaspie explicitly assured Saddam that the US regime was not seeking to invest itself in his border dispute with Kuwait - a misleading, inaccurate statement. This she told Saddam
prior to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait.
In a now famous interview with the Iraqi leader, U.S. Ambassador April Glaspie told Saddam, ‘[W]e have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait.’ The U.S. State Department had earlier told Saddam that Washington had ‘no special defense or security commitments to Kuwait.’ The United States may not have intended to give Iraq a green light, but that is effectively what it did.”
I'm generally not inclined to take issue with my FP colleagues, but David Kenner's recent posting on the WikiLeaks release of a cable recounting Saddam…
foreignpolicy.com
US troop buildup in Saudi Arabia and subsequent talks you're referencing took place
after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.
No basis, just your conjecture. Violations of ceasefires happen shortly after wars end. Very common. But assuming that Saddam would try to attack again an Iranian army that had raised over 10M volunteers? Zero evidence Backed by zero facts.
I cited facts but you skipped them.
1) Iraq attacked Iran a second time merely six days after the 1988 ceasefire which effectively ended the war. Not only did he unleash the MKO, equipped to the teeth with armor and trained by Iraq, but he ordered the Iraqi air force to trespass into Iranian airspace and provide cover to the terrorists in their so-called Foroughe Javedan operation on Iranian soil. Thence Iran was right to doubt Saddam's sincerity whenever he uttered the word "ceasefire".
2) Iraq's 1982 ceasefire proposal was definitely sub-standard, did not conform to international norms and was therefore unacceptable for Iran. Namely, Saddam refused to acknowledge the fact that Iraq had been the aggressor, rejected having to pay reparations, did not agree to a prisoner swap, and if I'm not mistaken even fell short of recognizing the international bilateral border i.e. accepting a return to the Algiers Accord etc.
Your claim of a War weary Iraq in 1988? Again incorrect. Is that why Iraq invaded Kuwait less than 2 years later? Is that why Saddam had one of the largest standing armies in the world at the end of 1988?
Weary of a direct confrontation with an adversary as large and potent as Iran. Thought that would be self-explanatory. Hence why Iraq subscribed to the 1988 UN-brokered ceasefire.
And that in turn was due to Iran fighting them until 1988. In 1982, chances are Saddam had not gotten the lesson yet, and that instead of invading Iran a second time through the MKO like he did in 1988, he would have chosen to do so directly using his own forces. At any rate it was reasonable for Iranian authorities to calculate that he might be tempted by such a move.
Saddam in no way was war weary in 1988, he began to turn his sights on weaker targets since he failed against Iran and underestimated national resistance.
As just explained, this applied to Iraq being weary of continuing the direct large scale war with Iran specifically.
Russia was providing the most arms to Iraq and rebuilt their entire military. The PG Arabs bankrolled the war using more than 20B (1980’s dollars) alongside Iraqi own oil revenues. The West provided chemical precursors and intelligence targeting.
PGCC Arab regimes are western clients and vassals, their involvement was part and parcel of a broader policy of the west against Iran.
The French moreover provided top of the line, non-downgraded Super Etendard and Mirage F-1 fighter jets, as well as actual pilots to fly them on missions against Iran. The US regime entered the war directly on Iraq's side in the Persian Gulf, attacked the Iranian Navy, downed an Iranian civilian airliner.
Yet despite all this you attribute ALL the deaths in the war to America and zero to Russia or anyone else. Probably because it doesn’t fit the narrative for Russia to be our enemy in current state of politics. We absolve Russia of all their past crimes. Very 1984ish of you.
More like because it's unrelated to the contention I was addressing and also because it's quite impossible to attribute precisely quantified, distinct portions of Iranian casualties to each of the two hostile superpowers of the time.
But even if we include the Soviet factor into the analysis, my point will stand. For Iran retaliated against the USSR by backing Afghan Mojahedin fighting Soviet occupation of their land. You may add a couple of thousand of Soviet troops eliminated by Iranian-backed Afghan fighters to the previously determined total of 850. The number would still be vastly inferior to the 300.000 Iranian martyrs, and the obtained ratio would still be unfavorable compared to the 2000-2020 ratio calculated above.
And again, that's sort of proxy warfare is nothing the Iran of the 21st century would be reluctant to engage in because of some alleged risk-aversion.
Even if there wasn’t a war with Iraq, Iran was going to push the US out of the Middle East and Lebanon. That was its message as an anti-Imperial power.
Not using the same means. It's all a matter of adjusting the means to the political context.
And being subjected to direct military aggression systematically leads to radicalization, because it offers political justification both domestically and internationally for more drastic counter-measures.
The SNSC is made up of politicians and Rahbar takes the view of the factions into account to formulate a consensus decision. Whatever IRGC recommends it is still up to the establishment to accept or deny. US military wanted to kill Solemani more than 10 years ago, it was political establishment that denied them.
Random political factions do not get to decide on topics of extraordinary relevance to national security, including how Iran will respond to the martyrdom of shahid Soleimani. These are not ordinary, everyday matters of national security. A distinction has to be made here.
Liberals can incrementally try to weigh on the implementation of the policy at certain levels. But it won't change much at the end of the day.
Slightly more trivial security matters are another pair of shoes of course.
What you showed is a warped view of history to justify your opinion.
I reminded a number of historic facts and figures.
Whereas some of the assessments I just had to address, are echoing biased western narratives on recent Iranian history. Time to shed them off.
