Iran-Iraq War (1980): Khorramshahr

Saddam Hussein read the 1979 Iranian Revolution as weakness. The 1975 Algiers Agreement on the Shatt was torn up. Iraqi forces took Khorramshahr and failed to take a knockout; Iranian resistance and mobilisation surprised Baghdad. Foreign states tilted: many Arab capitals and Western suppliers backed Iraq as a container of the revolution, while Iran was isolated.

Basra's approaches (including the 1986 Faw seizure) became the war's grinding southern hinge. The "war of the cities" used missiles and air raids on Tehran, Baghdad and others. The tanker war drew in US reflagging of Kuwaiti ships (1987) and the 1988 shoot-down of Iran Air 655 -- a civilian airliner disaster inside the naval melee.

Chemical attacks are documented; this page records them as crimes and facts, not as a method. Iran accepted 598 in July 1988 after battlefield reverses and isolation -- Khomeini compared it to drinking poison. A ceasefire is not a peace treaty; prisoners and the Shatt remained disputed for years.