The Gulf War: The Origins and Implications of the Iraq-Iran Conflict

Now in its seventh year, the Iraq-Iran War has recently become the focus of intense world-wide attention, especially in the United States, where the attack on the USS Stark, the reflagging of the Kuwaiti tankers, and the heavy presence of American warships in the Gulf have sparked a heated debate in Congress and among the American people. How did this conflict begin? And how can it be resolved?
In this informative volume, Majid Khadduri, a world-renowned authority on Islamic law and the author of numerous books on Middle Eastern problems, provides a thoughtful account of the Gulf War, covering the complete history of relations between these two nations, the present conflict, and the possibility of peace in the future. As Khadduri points out, the roots of the war run deep, growing out of ethnic differences (the Iranians are Persians, the Iraqi Arabs), boundary disputes, and over ten centuries of religious antagonism. Khadduri explains how the rise of Persia as a Shi'ite state helped divide Islam into two factions (Shi'ite and Sunni Muslims) and how the Sunni-Shi'i controversy inflamed tensions between the two countries. He describes the stormy relations between Iraq and Iran after World War I, the rise of the Pan-Arab Ba'th Party in Iraq in the late 1960s, and the Treaty of 1975, signed by the Shah and then deputy President Saddam Hussein (Husayn), which brought a half-decade of peace before it fell apart. He also discusses how the nature of government in these two nations--one a clerical state headed by Khomeini (Khumayni), the other a secular state ruled by the Ba'th Party and President Hussein (Husayn)--complicates peace negotiations (the Iraqi see the war as a political dispute over national boundaries, the Iranians as a religious war, with no political boundaries at all). The United Nations might be able to pressure Iraq and Iran to end the war, Khadduri concludes, but until their embedded antagonisms are resolved, there will never be lasting peace between these two nations.
For anyone concerned about the turmoil in the Middle East, this perceptive volume offers a goldmine of information, much of it enlightening, much of it disturbing.