The Probert Encyclopaedia of Warfare

IRAN-IRAQ WAR

The Iran-Iraq War between Iran and Iraq lasted from 1980 to 1988, and was claimed by Iran to have begun with the Iraqi offensive on the 21st of September 1980, and by Iraq with the Iranian shelling of border posts on the 4th of September 1980. It was occasioned by a boundary dispute over the Shatt-al-Arab waterway, it fundamentally arose because of Saddam Hussein's fear of a weakening of his absolute power base in Iraq by Iran' s encouragement of the Shi'ite majority in Iraq to rise against the Sunni government.
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