Iran-Iraq War (1982): Iranian choice

A border war that became a war of societies 1980-88 fused a river-border dispute, two authoritarian projects, and great-power tilt -- without a 1945-style settlement. 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. By 1982 Iran had expelled most invaders and faced a choice: stop, or carry the war into Iraq. Khomeini's government chose to continue toward Basra and a political end in Baghdad that never came.

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.