4-20-26 The War in Iran (Lessons from the Iran-Iraq War)

As of writing this post (4/20/26), there continues to not be a clear indication for how this war with Iran will end. There is very inconsistent news coming from this administration in regards to what the Iranians are or are not agreeing to. Last Friday (4/17), there was news from this administration that the Iranians had agreed to allow for all traffic to transit the Strait of Hormuz, and they agreed to give up any enriched uranium they had in exchange for peace. This evidently was entirely untrue, as the Iranian government denied that they would hand over any enriched uranium. There are a few possible explanations for these mixed messages: there is some degree of senility characterizing the behavior of the American president, if there has been some headway made with negotiations towards peace with Iran then there is seemingly an unwillingness to be honest to the American public about how little the US is getting in these negotiations, and there seems to be some degree of market manipulation with these announcements as the worst of the disinformation seems to occur right before the weekend when markets close. There is also some speculation as to decentralization protocols in place for the IRGC as a contingency in the event that the government was decapitated, and it may be that with the death of so many Iranian governmental figures, different parts of the IRGC are operating independently and there is no central government control at the moment (ironic then, that the assassination campaign of the Israelis and Americans may be working against them now).

There is also, reportedly, some progress being made with a ceasefire between Lebanon and Israel, with negotiations occurring directly between the Lebanese government and Israel, sidestepping Hezbollah entirely. With how rapidly reported information changes in this war, I think it’s far too soon to say whether peace will hold, whether between Israel and Lebanon, or whether between Iran and the US/Israel. However since these big announcements about the ceasefires have been made on Friday, over the weekend Israel continued to bomb targets in southern Lebanon, and there has been continued back-and-forth on whether the Strait of Hormuz is open, with Iran reportedly targeting some ships attempting to transit, and the US seizing an Iranian ship.

I do want to emphasize how profoundly needless this war has been, but the way it has played out was also completely foreseeable. It’s why I advocate for learning history: it’s interesting, but also because there are historical patterns that can be used to better understand current events. It can also help one better understand the nature of power and how those in power behave, and to process information being given to them more critically.

For this particular example, I will look at the last major (existential) conflict Iran was involved in: the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980’s (known as the Gulf War, before Saddam’s misadventures in Kuwait). I’m not going to go into the whole backstory of the conflict itself, but suffice it to say that there was a lot of concern throughout the Arab world after the Iranian Revolution of 1979. As is often the nature of revolutionary ideologues, their beliefs often transcend national boundaries, and there was significant concern that Iran would use its resources to try to export “revolution” in areas with large numbers of Shia. This was particularly concerning to Saddam, dictator of a country where almost two-thirds of the population was Shia.

Iraq officially began the conflict with an invasion of Iran in the south of the country, near the Gulf itself. Initially, though their progress was slower than expected, the Iraqis were able to capture some Iranian territory. They were bankrolled by the Arab Gulf countries, and were being sold weapons by Egypt, Europe, and the US. They were also receiving significant assistance with American intelligence. However, the demographics of this conflict were against the Iraqis, and due to overwhelming numbers, and frankly, higher religious morale on the part of the Iranians, the Iranians were able to recapture their territory and invade into Iraq.

Iraq was eventually able to force a stalemate in the ground war with the assistance of Saudi money, Egyptian and German arms, American intelligence and arms, and of course, chemical weapons used on a larger scale than had been seen since the first World War.

Where it starts to become reminiscent of the current conflict, is that they also had a more advanced airforce, and were able to win over air superiority over much of the Iranian skies. Iranian anti-air capabilities were insufficient to stop Iraqi airforce activity during the night for several years, and so during this time the Iraqis were able to launch air raids over Iranian cities almost with impunity. Ostensibly targeting military infrastructure, they would kill thousands of Iranian civilians, destroy civilian infrastructure, as well as kill important government officials, even at one point killing the man who was to be next-in-line for Supreme Leader of the country (Ayatollah Mohamed Beheshti, killed along with dozens of senior party members in one strike). While Iran could not launch air raids of their own into Iraqi cities, they instead relied on their missile program to launch retaliatory strikes with ballistic missiles. This aspect of the war was notable enough on the international stage, that it came to be known as the “War of the Cities”.

Iraq would also try squeeze Iran economically, and would target any ships (regardless of nationality) that were loading up on oil from Iranian ports. There were also strikes against Iranian oil infrastructure, particularly at Kharg island that would force them to move much of their oil shipping elsewhere. The Iranians, in retaliation, would target oil infrastructure on various countries in the Gulf that were deemed to be supporting Iraq, as well as attack shipping originating from these countries, and would close off trade through the Strait of Hormuz. This would force the American navy to get involved to escort ships through the Gulf and keep a modicum of trade flowing. These anti-shipping campaigns came to be known as the “Tanker War”.

While the Iran-Iraq war and the currently conflict are very different (the ground fighting of the Iran-Iraq war would leave, by some estimates, as many as a million or more dead), there are clearly some obvious parallels. The Iranians are once again fighting an enemy with a superior air force that is able to launch air strikes against them with impunity, they are losing high-ranking government officials as a result of the conflict, they are suffering attacks to their oil-exporting capabilities, and in turn, they are retaliating with ballistic missiles, are targeting trade and oil infrastructure of Gulf Arab countries to put pressure on their adversary, and have closed shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.

Recall however, that the Iranians endured years of this. While the Israelis and Americans may have been hoping that the seeming unpopularity of the Iranian regime with their populace would have lead to a mass uprising, without a viable, organized, and armed entity on the ground, it was always going to be impossible for an air campaign to be sufficient to topple the regime.

As I said last week, instead, it is looking like the most likely outcome is going to be a return to the status quo, where the current regime remains in place, they still have proxies throughout the Middle East (though admittedly weakened), their missile program is still in place (though with damage to their military industrial capacity), they will still have control over shipping in the Persian Gulf, and they will still have every incentive imaginable to pursue development of a nuclear weapon. What will have changed is international mistrust of the US and Israel (with greater motivation to pursue economic and military organization independent of the US), loss of face on the American’s part, and the Iranian government will be led by younger, more radical, hardline figures who will not quickly forget the assassination of their leaders and mentors.