In 1979, there was a turning point in the modern Middle East. Egypt, the most populous Arab state and the birthplace of Nasserism, signed a peace treaty with Israel, effectively ending three decades of hostilities. Further east, Iran and Iraq both went through leadership changes. In Iraq, Saddam Hussein seized power from his fellow Ba’athist Ahmad Hassan al-Bakr. In Iran, the Shah, Reza Pahlavi, was forced to flee the country — Ayatollah Khomeini, recently returned from exile, seized the opportunity of the revolution to create the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Whereas the Shah and the Iraqi Ba’athist could come to terms on disagreements in the 1970s, there was no room for compromise between the new Islamic Republic and the secular, socialist, pan-Arab Ba’athist. The Iraqi-Iranian dispute over the Shatt al-Arab, the river forming the boundary between the two countries, reemerged. The Iraqi concessions made in the 1970s, in part to stop the Shah’s support of the Iraqi Kurds, were no longer suitable. The Shah was no longer the leader in Iran and Saddam saw an opportunity to impose his will on the newly constituted Islamic Republic.
On September 22, 1980, Iraq’s army invaded Iran, beginning the carnage that would last almost eight years and claim approximately one million lives in a Clausewitzian total war. The population was placed on a war footing, the economy was focused on the production of war material, and the state was geared towards nothing short of total victory. The Kurds were not exempt from the carnage.
Operation Provide Comfort created the Kurdish autonomous area that became the Kurdistan Regional Government.
The Kurd’s location in the north was on the periphery of where most of the battles took place; however, that same position that kept them from the brunt of the war was also key strategic terrain as control of the northern flank prevented a crushing blow from the side, as well as the northward expansion of the front.
The Kurd’s cross border ties and knowledge of the mountains was prized by both sides. Saddam realized this fact to brutal effect. Saddam used chemical weapons, such as hydrogen cyanide, to terrorize the Kurd’s in order to deter them from supporting the Iranian cause. These atrocities occurred most notably at Halabjah, the last place to be occupied by the Iranians, in March 1988, killing 5,000, mostly women and children.
The chemical attack at Halabjah was neither the first nor the last chemical or conventional attack the Kurds would suffer. In what would be known as the al-Anfal Campaign (also known as the Anfal Genocide) Kurds were subjected to atrocities at the hands of the government in Baghdad. In the summer of 1988, more than 65 other Kurdish villages were gassed, resulting in heavy casualties and the displacement of a quarter-million Kurds who fled into Iran and Turkey.
The war weary Iraqi military was no match for the U.S. led coalition, which drove it from Kuwait in the 1991 Operation Desert Storm. Of the approximately 650,000 strong Iraqi army, only the vaunted Republican Guard was a somewhat effective force against the technologically advanced and more professional western military coalition. The Iraq military lost approximately 20,000 soldiers, while more than 75,000 were wounded, and a further 70,000 captured. After the Iraqi Army was driven from Iraq, the U.S. led coalition allowed what remained to limp back to Iraq.
In the wake of the decisive victory of liberating Kuwait, the U.S. President, George H. W. Bush, urged the “Iraqi military and the Iraqi people to take matters into their own hands and force Saddam Hussein, the dictator, to step aside.” The minority Shia in the south and the Kurds in the north acted on the U.S. President’s words and began to rebel en masse against the regime in Baghdad. Any support they thought they would receive from the U.S. or the West did not materialize and what was left of Saddam’s army, especially the Republican Guard, turned their weapons inwards to put down the Shia and Kurdish revolts with extreme brutality.
The U.S. and the West stood by, wanting to avoid a “Lebanonization of Iraq.” The effects of the crackdown did prompt the U.S. to provide assistance to the beleaguered Kurds and impose no-fly zones, which grounded Saddam’s helicopters that were indiscriminately strafing southern Shia and northern Kurd.
In addition to the no-fly zones, the U.S. and other Western nations sought to aid the Kurds with Operation Provide Comfort. This operation protected Kurds fleeing their homes in the aftermath of the crushed rebellion and provided much needed humanitarian aid through military resources and private volunteers. To secure the Kurds, the U.S. and other Provide Comfort allies ordered Saddam’s military to maintain a distance of 30 kilometers from the coalition forces as they operated and advanced to secure the vulnerable Kurdish populace in the north. Operation Provide Comfort created the Kurdish autonomous area that became the Kurdistan Regional Government.
The no-fly zones continued to be enforced for the next decade, leaving the Kurds as close to having their own state as they had been since the immediate aftermath of World War One. The present was good, but the future would be brighter as new opportunities would present themselves out of the chaos of post-Saddam Iraq.
For further insight read Keegan, John. 2005. The Iraq War. New York: Vintage Books; summary of the Iran-Iraq War; Operation Provide Comfort; How Operation Provide Comfort could be seen as a success to be modeled for current and future humanitarian operations.
