The Iran-Iraq war also called “The Imposed war” by Iranians is considered the longest conventional war in modern times. Given the number of associated deaths and injuries (soldiers and civilians) it is also one of the bloodiest wars in modern history. It started more than thirty-five years ago based on regional rivalry and a desire for territorial acquisition. Despite Saddam Hussein’s belief that it would be an easy victory for him, the Iran-Iraq war lasted eight brutal years and resulted in wide scale devastation on both sides. As a result, this war has had and continues to have an immense impact on Iran, Iraq, as well as the greater Middle East. This is related to the use of ideology (religious sectarianism) as a tool for propaganda and the propagation of internal and external support. More specifically, the strategic use of Sunnism by Iraq and Shia’ism by Iran, assisted each nation to strengthen its position during the war. For example, the Sunni versus Shia framework was used as the pretext by Saddam Hussein for the invasion of Iran and the war despite his political and geostrategic aspirations. The Sunni versus Shia framework that emerged, not only impacted the war, but also evolved into the sectarian struggles we see today. It ultimately put Shia Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia at odds with one other and created the foundation for ongoing sectarian conflict between the two nations. Similar to the Iran Iraq war, sectarianism is being used as a tool to achieve political and geostrategic advantages and ultimately regional dominance. The long-term impact of the sectarian fault lines of the Iran-Iraq war can be seen today across the Muslim world, including in Syria, Iraq and Yemen. These countries have been torn apart along deepening fault lines and the lives of citizens have been severely impacted as a result. As such, it is important to have a comprehensive understanding of the role that sectarianism had in mobilizing forces and support during the war for both Iran and Iraq, as well as the impact this strategy continues to have in the Middle East. This paper will examine the Iran-Iraq war, including its evolution, its framing, the role of foreign influence, as well as a brief examination of the current sectarian conflict in a post Iran-Iraq war context.

Since the end of the Cold War a number of “quasi” or “de facto” states have emerged which have not received recognition by the international community as sovereign states despite declaring independence. Many of these quasi-states have weak economies and fragile state-like institutions. By contrast the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KR), which became a constitutional federal region of Iraq in 2005, enjoys a viable economy, effective governance, and unprecedented diplomatic and military relations with both neighboring and far-off states, despite having refrained to-date from declaring independence. Furthermore, the KR has reached such a status in spite of parent state repression, internal conflict, global isolation, and regional intrusion.

During the 1991 Gulf War, Iraq launched forty-three missiles at Israeli cities, not one armed with unconventional warheads, even though Saddam Hussein threatened to use weapons of mass destruction (WMD) against Israel if he were attacked by the coalition forces. Many Americans and Israelis attribute the lack of Iraqi WMD use to effective U.S. and Israeli deterrence policies. However, since “all deterrence is self-deterrence,” Israeli and U.S. deterrence policies—and their effect on Saddam’s behavior during the Gulf War—must be linked to evidence from the Iraqi side. A published collection of captured Iraqi records offers an opportunity to better understand Saddam Hussein’s perception of U.S. and Israeli deterrence signals, affording innovative insights into the reasons behind Iraq’s restraint from using weapons of mass destruction against Israeli targets during the 1991 Gulf War. This article tests a wide range of suggested hypotheses, and suggests that U.S. and Israeli deterrence played only a minimal role in dissuading Iraqi use of WMD. The article concludes with some thoughts on deterrence theory and the new challenges it faces in the Second Nuclear Age. This part examines three key terms in this discussion: ambiguous nuclear policy, existential deterrence, and the stability-instability paradox. In doing so, this article underlines the complexity of using nuclear deterrence against non-nuclear threats.