Inventions of the Iran–Iraq War

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Notes

¹ Omar Khayyam, ‘Darurat al-tadadd fi'l- ‘alam wa'l-jabr wa'l-baqa’ [The neccessity of contradiction, free will, and determinism), in: Seyyed Hossein Nasr with Mehdi Aminrazavi (Eds), An Anthology of Philosophy in Persia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 406.

² Dilip Hiro stresses the role of the US, arguing that by ‘supplying secret information, which exaggerated Iran's military weakness, to Saudi Arabia for onward transmission to Baghdad, Washington encouraged Iraq to attack Iran’; see his book, The Longest War: The Iran–Iraq Military Conflict (London: Grafton Books, 1990), p. 71.

³ This justification was rather more central to the Iraqi efforts to legitimate the invasion: By interfering in the internal affairs of Iraq, it typically was argued, Iran had broken the terms of the Algiers Agreement; see, for example, Majid Khadduri, The Gulf War: The Origins and Implications of the Iraq–Iran Conflict (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), especially Chapter 8.

⁴ In terms of international law, the United Nations belatedly settled the question of who started the war its report of 9 December 1991 (S/23273), which—only after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait—refers to ‘Iraq's aggression against Iran.’

⁵ See J. S. Bruner, ‘Going beyond the information given’, in University of Colorado, Boulder, Department of Psychology (Ed.), Contemporary Approaches to Cognition (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1957), pp. 218–238.

⁶ Ying-yi Hong, Michael W. Morris, Chi-yue Chiu, Verónica Benet-Martínez, ‘Multicultural Minds: A Dynamic Constructivist Approach to Culture and Cognition,’ American Psychologist, 55, 7 (2000), p. 711.

⁷ See Arshin Adib-Moghaddam, ‘Islamic utopian romanticism and the foreign policy culture of Iran,’ Critique: Critical Middle Eastern Studies 14, 3 (2005), pp. 265–292; Arshin Adib-Moghaddam, The Question of the Islamic Republic: Selected Essays on the Politics of Post-revolutionary Iran (forthcoming).

⁸ Gordon W. Allport, ‘The Role of Expectancy’, in Leon Bramson & George W. Goethals (Eds), War Studies from Psychology, Sociology, Anthropology (London: Basic Books, 1964), p. 179.

⁹ Michael W. Morris, Tanya Menon & Daniel R. Ames, ‘Culturally Conferred Conceptions of Agency: A Key to Social Perception of Persons, Groups, and Other Actors,’ Personality and Social Psychology Review 5, 2 (2001), p. 173.

¹⁰ See further Arshin Adib-Moghaddam, The International Politics of the Persian Gulf: A Cultural Genealogy (London: Routledge, 2006).

¹¹ Ofra Bengio, Saddam's Word, p. 137.

¹² The term ajam, often used in a pejorative sense, originally identified the non-Arabs (particularly the Iranians) peoples of the Muslim Empire. During later periods the term acquired an ethnic and geographic designation to distinguish Arabs from Iranians.

¹³ Bengio, Saddam's Word, pp. 142–143.

¹⁴ Talal Atrissi, ‘The Image of the Iranians in Arab Schoolbooks,’ in Khair el-Din Haseeb (Ed.), Arab-Iranian Relations (Beirut: Center for Arab Unity Studies, 1998), p. 155.

¹⁵ Bengio, Saddam's Word, p. 140.

¹⁶ Adib-Moghaddam, The International Politics of the Persian Gulf.

¹⁷ Adib-Moghaddam, The International Politics of the Persian Gulf

¹⁹ Quoted in Atrissi, ‘The image of the Iranians in Arab Schoolbooks’, p. 161.

¹⁸ After the Second Gulf War, Iraqi-Kurds operating in the semi-autonomous northern no-fly zone forwarded thousands of documents from the Iraqi intelligence's four primary agencies, including the al-Amn al-Khas (Special Security), al Amn al-‘Amn (General Security), al-Mukhabarat al-Amma (General Intelligence) and al Istikhbarat al- ‘Askariyya (Military Intelligence), to the US government. They are available on the pages of the Iraq Research and Documentation Program at the Center for Middle East Studies, Harvard University, http://www.fas.harvard.edu/ ∼ irdp/

²⁰ Both Aflaq and al-Husri were instrumental in the institutionalization of the pan-Arab idea in Iraq. The former—who had founded the Ba'th party in the 1940s—because of his decision to side with the Iraqi Ba'th of Saddam Hussein against the Syrian Ba'th of Hafiz al-Assad in the early 1970s, the latter because of his educational posts between 1921 and 1941.

²² Kanan Makiya, Republic of Fear: The Politics of Modern Iraq, updated edition with a new introduction (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), pp. 270–271.

²¹ Quoted in Bengio, Saddam's Word, p. 145.

²³ Cable, US Embassy Baghdad, to US Department of State (DOS), ‘Minister of Industry Blasts Senate Action,’ 13 September 1988, page 2. I am drawing on the set of documents obtained by the National Security Archive (NSA) at George Washington University under the US Freedom on Information Act. See, for example, ‘Saddam Hussein: More Secret History’, 18 December 2003, < http://www.gwu.edu/ ∼ nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB107/> [accessed 22 February 2005].

²⁴ Comprehensive Report of the Special Advisor to the DCI on Iraq's WMD, 30 September 2004, < http://www.cia.gov/cia/report/iraq_wmd_2004/transmittal.html> [accessed 21 January 2005]. The report also revealed that Saddam Hussein used the United Nations-managed Oil-for-Food program to provide millions of dollars in subsidies to the Iranian opposition group, the Mojahedin-e khalq Organization (MKO), which is listed as a terrorist organization both in the EU and the United States. The MKO is led by Maryam and Massoud Rajavi and has a political wing that operates under the name ‘National Council for Resistance in Iran;’ the armed military wing, based in Iraq until 2003 but disarmed and confined to one base by the US military since, launched several terrorist attacks inside Iran between 1988 and 2002. See Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball, ‘Shades of Gray: The Duelfer report alleges that Saddam gave funds to a listed terror group, but the claim does little to advance the White House case for war,’ Newsweek (13 October 2004).

²⁵ See especially Peter Berger & Thomas Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality (New York: Anchor Books, 1966); and George Herbert Mead, Mind, Self, and Society (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1934).

²⁶ Lawrence A. Hirschfeld & Susan A. Gelman(Eds), Mapping the Mind: Domain Specificity in Cognition and Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994).

²⁷ See also Arshin Adib-Moghaddam, ‘Islamic Utopian Romanticism, p. 268.

²⁸ Alexander Wendt, Social Theory of International Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), p. 227.

²⁹ David Berreby, Us and Them: Understanding your Tribal Mind (London: Hutchinson, 2005), p. 104.

³⁰ Many arguments about the causes of the Iraq war merge on this point, without, however, making the link between Iraqi state identity (under Saddam Hussein), external confirmation and the decision to launch the invasion explicit. See among others Charles Tripp, A History of Iraq, 2nd edition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), p. 231; and Anoushiravan Ehteshami and Gerd Nonneman, War and Peace in the Gulf: Domestic Politics and Regional Relations into the 1990s (Reading: Ithaca, 1991), p. 39.

³¹ Ehteshami and Nonneman, War and Peace in the Gulf, pp. 39–43.

³² Ehteshami and Nonneman, War and Peace in the Gulf, pp. 39–43 p. 43; see also Bahman Baktiari, ‘Revolutionary Iran's Persian Gulf Policy: The Quest for Regional Supremacy’, in Hooshang Amirahmadi & Nader Entessar (Eds), Iran and the Arab World (London: Macmillan Press, 1998), p. 74.

³³ Saideh Lotfian, ‘Taking Sides: Regional Powers and the War’, in Farhang Rajaee (Ed.), Iranian Perspectives on the Iran-Iraq War (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1997), p. 18.

³⁴ Shahram Chubin & Charles Tripp, Iran and Iraq at War (London: I.B. Tauris, 1988), p. 154.

³⁵ Lotfian, ‘Taking Sides’, p. 19.

³⁶ Chubin and Tripp, Iran and Iraq at War, p. 153.

³⁷ Telegram from British Embassy Baghdad to Foreign and Commonwealth Office, ‘Saddam Hussein,’ 20 December 1969, Public Record Office, London, FCO 17/871, p. 4; and NSA, op. cit.

³⁸ ‘Secretary's Principals and Regionals Staff Meeting,’ 28 April 1975 (Excerpt), p. 22, NSA, op. cit.

³⁹ Cable from US Embassy Amman to DOS, ‘Hussein on Mubarak's Visit and Their Joint Trip to Iraq,’ 19 March 1985, p. 3, NSA, op. cit.

⁴⁰ Cable from US Embassy Baghdad to DOS, ‘Views of the Jordanian and Egyptian Ambassadors on Iraq: the War, the Peace Process, and Inter-Arab Relations,’ 28 March 1985, p. 3, NSA, op. cit.

⁴¹ See, for instance, Richard Sorabji & David Rodin (Eds), The Ethics of War: Shared Problems in Different Traditions (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006).

⁴² Sir Anthony Parsons, ‘Iran and the United Nations, with particular reference to the Iran–Iraq war’, in Anoushiravan Ehteshami and Manshour Varasteh (Eds), Iran and the International Community (London: Routledge, 1991), pp. 16 and 18.

⁴⁴ Julian Perry Robinson & Jozef Goldblat, ‘Chemical Warfare in the Iraq–Iran War’, SIPRI Fact Sheet, Chemical Weapons I. Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (May 1984).

⁴³ See also Arshin Adib-Moghaddam, ‘The Whole Range of Saddam Hussein's War Crimes, Middle East Report, 36, 2 (Summer 2006), pp. 30–35.

⁴⁵ Parsons, ‘Iran and the United Nations’, p. 19.

⁴⁶ Parsons, ‘Iran and the United Nations’, p. 19, pp. 19–20.

⁴⁷ Leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), a group that the Iraqis referred to as Ulama Iran (agent of Iran) because of its collusion with Iran in the latter periods of the war.

⁴⁸ Kurdish tribal leaders of paramilitary units officially referred to as Qiyadet Jahafel al-Difa’ al-Watani (National Defence Battalions) by the Iraqi regime and derided by other Kurds as jahsh or ‘donkey foals’ because of their alliance with the state.

⁴⁹ The Ali Hassan al-Majid tapes were obtained by Human Rights Watch (HRW) after the 1991 Persian Gulf War and have been published as Appendix A to HRW's Report, ‘Genocide in Iraq. The Anfal Campaign Against the Kurds’, < http://www.hrw.org/reports/1993/iraqanfal/> [accessed 23 March 2006].

⁵⁰ See further Adam Tarock, The Superpowers’ Involvement in the Iran–-Iraq War (Commack: Nova Science Press, 1998), p. 61.

⁵¹ See the NSA Electronic Briefing Book No. 82 (25 February 2003), ‘Shaking Hands with Saddam Hussein. The US Tilts toward Iraq, 1980–1984’, Joyce Battle, ed. < http://www.gwu.edu/ ∼ nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/index.htm> [accessed 13 March 2006].

⁵² US House of Representatives, Speech by Henry B. Gonzalez: ‘Bush Administration Had Acute Knowledge of Iraq's Military Industrialisation Plans’ (27 July 1992) < http://www.fas.org/spp/starwars/congress/1992/h920727g.htm> [accessed 21 January 2004].

⁵⁷ This is a reference to a National Security Decision Directive signed by Ronald Reagan in June 1983 and was co-authored by Howard Teicher and another NSC staff member, Geoffrey Kemp. The content of the NSDD and even its identification number remain classified.

⁵⁸ US District Court (Florida, Southern District) Affidavit. ‘United States of America, Plaintiff, v. Carlos Cardoen [et al.]’ [Charge that Teledyne Wah Chang Albany Illegally Provided a Proscribed Substance, Zirconium, to Cardoen Industries and to Iraq], 31 January 1995. Teicher also stated that the CIA encouraged Iraq to use cluster bombs against the Iranian ‘human wave’ attacks. NSA, op. cit., pp. 3, 4, respectively.

⁵³ US Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs (7 October 1994). Committee Staff Report No. 3: Chemical Warfare Agent Identification, Chemical Injuries, and Other Findings. Principal Investigator James J Tuite III: ‘US Chemical and Biological Exports to Iraq and their Possible Impact on the Health Consequences of the Persian Gulf War’, < http://www.chronicillnet.org/PGWS/tuite/chembio.html> [accessed 14 March 2006].

⁵⁴ For Saddam's international suppliers see Adib-Moghaddam, ‘The Whole Range of Saddam Hussein's War Crimes’.

⁵⁵ See US Senate, 103rd Congress, Second Session (25 May 1994) a Report of Chairman Donald W. Riegle, Jr. and Ranking Member Alfonse M. D'Amato of the Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs with Respect to Export Administration: ‘The Riegle Report. US Chemical and Biological Warfare-Related Dual Use Exports to Iraq and their Possible Impact on the Health Consequences of the Gulf War,’ < http://www.gulfweb.org/bigdoc/report/riegle1.html> [accessed 12 February 2005].

⁵⁶ DOS, Bureau of Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs Information Memorandum, Jonathan T. Howe to Lawrence S. Eagleburger, ‘Iran–Iraq War: Analysis of Possible US Shift from Position of Strict Neutrality’, 7 October 1983. NSA, op. cit., p. 7.

⁵⁹ US Embassy in Italy Cable from Maxwell M. Rabb to the DOS, ‘Rumsfeld's Larger Meeting with Iraqi Deputy PM [Prime Minister] and FM [Foreign Minister] Tariz [Tariq] Aziz, 19, 20 December 1983. NSA, op. cit., page 3.

⁶⁰ US Embassy in United Kingdom, Cable from Charles H. Price II to the DOS. ‘Rumsfeld Mission: 20 December Meeting with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’, 21 December 1983. NSA, op. cit., p. 8.

⁶¹ DOS, Bureau of Politico-Military Affairs Information Memorandum from Jonathan T. Howe to George P. Shultz. ‘Iraq Use of Chemical Weapons’, 1 November 1983. NSA, op. cit., p. 1.

⁶² DOS, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs Action Memorandum from Jonathan T. Howe to Lawrence S. Eagleburger. ‘Iraqi Use of Chemical Weapons’ [Includes Cables Entitled ‘Deterring Iraqi Use of Chemical Weapons’ and ‘Background of Iraqi Use of Chemical Weapons’], 21 November 1983. NSA, op. cit., p. 6, emphasis added.

⁶³ On Rumsfeld's role in the negotiations, see also Joost R. Hilterman, ‘The Men Who Helped the Man Who Gassed His Own People,’ in Micah L. Sifry & Christopher Cerf (Eds) The Iraq War Reader. History, Documents, Opinions (London: Touchstone, 2003), pp. 41–44.

⁶⁴ DOS, Bureau of Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs Memorandum from James A. Placke to James M. Ealum [et al.]. [‘US Condemnation of Iraqi Chemical Weapons Use’], 4 March 1984. NSA, op. cit., p. 2.

⁶⁵ DOS, Bureau of Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs Memorandum from James A. Placke to James M. Ealum [et al.]. [‘US Condemnation of Iraqi Chemical Weapons Use’], 4 March 1984. NSA, op. cit., p. 2, p. 3, emphasis added.

⁶⁶ Alexander Zumach, ‘Blühende Geschäfte. In sämtlichen Rüstungsbereichen haben Firmen aus den fünf ständigen Ratsländern Irak unterstützt’, die Tageszeitung (TAZ) (19 December 2002), < http://www.taz.de/pt/2002/12/19/a0076.nf/text> [accessed 12 March 2006] and Adib-Moghaddam, ‘The Whole Range of Saddam Hussein's War Crimes’.

⁶⁷ US Interests Section in Iraq, Cable from William L. Eagleton, Jr. to the DOS, ‘Iraqi Warning re Iranian Offensive,’ 22 February 1984. NSA, op. cit., p. 1.

⁶⁸ DOS Cable from George P. Shultz to the United States Embassy in Lebanon [et al.]. ‘Department Press Briefing, March 30, 1984’, 31 March 1984. NSA, op. cit., p. 3.

⁶⁹ DOS, Bureau of Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs Cover Memorandum from Allen Overmyer to James A. Placke. [United Nations Security Council Response to Iranian Chemical Weapons Complaint; Includes Revised Working Paper], 30 March 1984. NSA, op. cit., p. 1.

⁷⁰ It was later established that the Iranian allegation that the US cruiser was in Iranian territorial waters was accurate. The captain of the USS Vincennes Will Rogers and even more surprisingly the Air Warfare Coordinator Scott Lustig subsequently would receive medals for their engagements in the Persian Gulf. The latter even achieved the Navy Commendation Medal with Combat V authorization for what was summarized as his ‘heroic achievements’.

⁷¹ The USS Stark was hit by Exocet missiles that Iraq had acquired from France in a deal that was backed by the United States. In his speech to the US House of Representative, the late Texas Democrat Henry Gonzales touched on that point: ‘I ask you how could we be supplying Iraq with everything from intelligence—because we had an intelligence-gathering agreement all during that war with Iraq—supplied them with everything else, even backed up foreign countries like France to make sure they supplied military things all the way from Mirages to Exocet missiles, one of which, incidentally, was the one that killed 37 of our sailors in the Persian Gulf’, op. cit.

⁷² The full details of the Iran-Contra affair remain undisclosed. What was revealed in congressional testimony is that the Reagan administration, with Israeli complicity, was engaged in a massive arms deal with the Islamic Republic, the profits of which were intended to finance the guerrilla war of the ‘Contras’ in Nicaragua. For the congressional hearings see Joel Brinkley (Ed.), Report of the Congressional Committee: Investigating the Iran-Contra Affair (New York: Times Book, 1988). For a discussion of the Iran-Contra- Affair and its impact on the Iran-Iraq war see Tarock, The Superpowers’ Involvement, pp. 91–122.

⁷³ ‘The Glaspie Transcript: Saddam meets the US Ambassador (25 July 1990)’, in Micah L. Sifry and Christopher Cerf (Eds), The Gulf War Reader, p.125.

⁷⁴ See ‘Saddam Hussein's Iraq’. Prepared by the US Department of State, September 1999. Available at < http://www.fas.org/news/iraq/2000/02/iraq99.htm>. In recent years, investigative journalists have provided further evidence for the support to Saddam. See David Leigh and John Hooper, ‘Britain's dirty secret’, The Guardian (6 March 2003), < http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0%2C2763%2C908426%2C00.html> [accessed 13 March 2004]; Babak Dehghanpisheh, ‘Grim Legacy’, Newsweek (19 March 2003) < http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3068535/> [accessed 6 March 2006]; Christopher Dickey and Evan Thomas, ‘How Saddam Happened’, Newsweek (23 September 2002) < http://foi.missouri.edu/terrorbkgd/howsaddam.html> [accessed 13 January 2006]; Michael Dobbs, ‘US Had Key Role in Iraq Buildup, Trade in Chemical Arms Allowed Despite Their Use on Iranians, Kurds’, The Washington Post (30 December 2002). < http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A52241-2002Dec29?language = printer> [accessed 13 March 2004]; and William Blum, ‘Anthrax for Export. US Companies sold Iraq the ingredients for a witch's brew’, The Progressive (April 1998) < http://www.progressive.org/0901/anth0498.html> [accessed 13 June 2001].

⁷⁶ John Mueller, Retreat from Doomsday: The Obsolescence of Major War (London: Basic Books, 1990), p. 13.

⁷⁵ Margaret Mead, ‘Warfare is only an invention—Not a Biological Necessity’, in Leon Bramson and George W. Goethals (Eds) War: Studies from Psychology, Sociology, Anthropology (London: Basic Books, 1964), pp. 269–274.