What the Iran-Iraq war taught today’s Iranian leaders - and why that matters

In September 1980, Saddam Hussein ordered a full-scale ground and air attack on Iran, hoping for a quick victory. 

He told the Iraqi people he would reach Tehran within weeks. Instead, the war lasted nearly eight years and killed more than a million people.

Beyond the vast destruction, the war helped shape the Islamic Republic of Iran into the system it is today.

At the time, Iran was still grappling with the turmoil of the 1979 revolution, which had toppled the Shah, a key ally of the US and Israel in the Middle East. 

The post-revolutionary Iranian army was falling apart, while nationalist, leftist and even moderate religious groups were competing with the ultraconservative clerics led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Iran’s first supreme leader.

Read more: What the Iran-Iraq war taught today’s Iranian leaders - and why that matters