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In 1979, Iran underwent a religious revolution against the westernized leadership of the nation; Islamic religious leaders objected to reforms that they felt threatened the country's traditional values. In November of 1979, supporters of the revolution seized the United States Embassy in Tehran and took 52 Americans as hostages, holding most of them for more than a year.
War raged between Iraq and Iran from 1980 until 1988 over a border dispute and because of fear by Iraq’s dictator, Saddam Hussein, that religious propaganda from Iran’s religious revolution could lead to a religious revolt in Iraq, as well. Also Saddam believed that Iran was weak following its revolution.
During the Iraq-Iran War, neither country followed the usual rules of war. Iraq used chemical weapons against Iranian forces and against Iraqi Kurds whom Iraq claimed were helping the Iranians. No country had used such weapons on a large scale since World War I.
Iran sent young village boys through minefields ahead of its troops. Many of the boys set off the land mines, giving up their lives so that the troops behind would have a clearer path.
Eventually Iran and Iraq agreed to share control of the Shatt Al-'Arab river. The Iraq-Iran war ended with no real change of territory, but the war did lead to a great growth of Iraq’s armed forces, which were helped by support from the United States during the conflict. (Remember that Iran was our enemy during this time – they held our embassy people hostage for over a year following their revolution.)
Iraqi forces under orders from the Sunni dictator Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in August of 1990.
The United Nations responded by forming a UN coalition of countries, led by the United States, which drove Saddam’s forces out of Kuwait in 1991.
At the invitation of its king, coalition forces fighting against Iraq were based in Saudi Arabia, and US military bases remained there until after 9/11/2001. This is a map from 2002.
The Saudi Arabian monarchy supported this move because they felt their own border with Iraq was threatened by Saddam’s aggression. Notice the location of Saudi oil fields.
As Iraqi forces left Kuwait they set the oil wells on fire, creating a major environmental disaster.
Though the Persian Gulf War was successful in freeing Kuwait, Hussein remained in power. UN sanctions, or limitations, were placed on Iraq’s oil sales to limit Saddam’s military spending and thus lessen his military threat to other nations.
UN sanctions also required that UN Weapons Inspectors be allowed inside any Iraqi facility to investigate and make sure no weapons of mass destruction (WMDs*), were being made there and that the ones he previously had (chemical weapons) were destroyed. * WMDs - include chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons. These are seen as being different from conventional weapons
Also, no-fly zones were established to protect the Kurds and Shia Muslims in the north and south of Iraq from more of Saddam’s attacks.
9/11/2001 This event makes our government extraordinarily sensitive to possible threats from the Middle East.
After 9/11 with fear of further attack from groups from the Middle East, the US administration came to believe that Saddam Hussein was still hiding WMDs and that there were ties between Iraq and members of the terrorist group Al Qaeda.
For these reasons, the US tried to gain UN support in invading Iraq, but the UN did not vote to support the US invasion.
This invasion was never sanctioned by the UN, and several of our allies refused to participate. Those who did formed what was called The Coalition of the Willing.
By 2003 continued Iraqi failure to obey the UN resolutions resulted in the US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003 and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein’s regime.
As it turned out, Saddam was bluffing about his WMD capacity to keep Iran from attacking, but we were also fooled, to Saddam’s detriment.
U.S. and Iraqi security forces have had to struggle with Iraqi and Islamic insurgencies and sectarian violence that military and civilian planners had failed to foresee.
Some US forces remain in Iraq today, trying to restore poor infrastructure and helping to support an elected government, while simultaneously dealing with the insurgency which escalated into what at one point amounted to a civil war within Iraq between the Sunnis and Shia.
No WMDs or pre-9/11 ties to Al Qaeda have ever been found, though Al Qaeda moved into Iraq during the war.
