Saddam and the Iran-Iraq War

Abstract

In September of 1980, Saddam Hussein initiated an offensive land war with Iran to realize Liddell Hart's prophetic desire for a better state of peace. He failed. Often viewed as an egotistical and demonic dictator, Saddam nevertheless was a sovereign leader with objectives, resources and a gameplan to reach his desired endstate. Saddam failed initially, because he poorly marshaled his instruments of national power to achieve his objectives. After eight years of conflict he finally orchestrated his tools of statecraft effectively, enabling Iraq to conclude the Iran-Iraq War on acceptable terms. The key to Saddam's eventual success depended on modification of his initial 1980 objectives to accomplish a more realistic endstate in 1988.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jan 01, 2001
Accession Number
ADA441580

Entities

People

  • Dwight Trafton
  • Mike Isherwood

Organizations

  • National War College

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Air Platforms
  • Energy and Power Technologies
  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Air Force
  • Air Power
  • Central Asia
  • Databases
  • Geography
  • Insurgency
  • International Law
  • Iran Iraq War
  • Iraqi-War
  • Middle East
  • National Security
  • New York
  • North Africa
  • Security
  • War
  • War Colleges
  • Warfare

Readers

  • Military History / Militaries and War Studies
  • Political Violence and Terrorism Studies.