Ancient history records innumerable conflicts between the Babylonians and Persians: since the days of the British Empire the two have argued over the Shatt al-Arab, the major waterway connecting the Persian Gulf with Iranian Khorramshahr and Abadan and Iraqi Basra.  Once vitally important, by the 1970s the Shatt al-Arab had largely been supplanted by pipelines and oil terminals.  Still, it provided Saddam Hussein with a convenient excuse to invade and get rid of that pesky fanatic Khomeini once and for all.  Certainly the timing looked right.  Equipped with the latest Soviet materiel, Iraq’s well-disciplined army was considered one of the best in the region.  The Iranian military, on the other hand, was in a state of anarchy.  After the Shah’s fall some 500 general officers were executed and over 10,000 more purged .  The mullahs who replaced them were long on fervor, but short on military experience. 

Alas, Saddam Hussein underestimated that fervor.  The defining event in Shi’a Islam is the murder of the Iman Husayn (son of Ali and grandson of Muhammed); to this day Shi’ites refer to Husayn as Sayyid ash-Shuhada, prince of martyrs.  Not surprisingly, Shi’a Islam has a fascination with martyrdom that would do Roman Catholicism proud.  Thanks largely to Iran’s Shuhaddin, what was expected to be a rout instead became a long, bloody quagmire.

Iraq handily won the first few exchanges.  Soon after the launch of their September 22, 1980 invasion they had advanced some 40 miles into Iran, taking the border city of Khorramshahr and laying siege to many others.  Faced with defeat, Iran’s leaders sent in the Pasdaran and Basij.  The Pasdaran (Pasdaran-e Enghelab-e Islami, or Islamic Revolutionary Guards) elected their own officers and were originally charged with protecting the Revolution from reactionary elements within the Iranian Army.  Alongside them were the Basij, a group which Khomeini called the “People’s Militia” or “Militia of Twenty Million.”  Recruited largely from Iran’s underclasses, the Basij received two weeks of less of training, then were sent to the front under the command of the Pasdaran; many brought their burial shrouds with them in anticipation of their martyrdom.

Many received their wish at Bostan in November, 1981, when the Iranians shocked even the Iraqis with a human wave attack.  It began with hundreds of youths, some no older than 12, running through a mine field, blowing themselves to pieces and thereby clearing a pathway for the Basij.  From here the Basij ran into the barbed wire which comprised the next line of Iraqi defense – and into waiting Iraqi guns.  Most of the Basij were killed in the first attack; wounded and dying men still crawled to the entanglements and cut through them.  Over their corpses came thousands of Pasdaran, sustaining horrendous casualties but forcing an Iraqi retreat.

As the war continued, casualties mounted on both sides.  Young boys, plastic keys hanging around their neck to represent the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven, sacrificed themselves by the thousands.  Hezbollahi made announcements in various newspapers inviting registration with the sole entry requirement being a “belief in God” and sympathy for the Hezbollahi.  Age was “'unimportant”: according to the advertisement, students could range from 14 to 90 years of age.  In autumn 1982 Khomeini declared that parental permission was unnecessary for those going to the front, that volunteering for military duty was a religious obligation, and that serving in the armed forces took priority over all other forms of work or study.  Iranian troops would become famous for this “meat grinder” school of combat, which evoked images of World War I trench warfare… images which became more unsettling as the protracted stalemate continued.

Despite Iran’s use of child martyrs, and Iraq’s use of mustard and nerve gas, there was little outcry from the international community.  American politicians were happy to see this mutually debilitating war drag on and neutralize two potential threats.  Every time it looked like one side might win, outsiders shipped missiles and weaponry to the other; in one of the more convoluted and embarrassing transactions, arms were shipped to Iran through Israel in what would become the “Iran-Contra Scandal.”  By August 20, 1988, when the parties accepted a UN-brokered cease-fire, there were over one million dead and at least as many wounded: the disputed boundary remained unchanged. 

The Pasdaran and Basij remain important forces within Iranian politics, and have been connected to many vigilante attacks against Iranians they see as betraying Islam and the Iranian Revolution.  Iran’s martyrs also set the stage for further suicide attacks throughout the Middle East.  In Lebanon, Shi’ite suicide bombers killed 241 marines in 1983 and 17 American Embassy personnel in 1984; Iranian supported Hamas and Hezbollah guerrillas have been responsible for a large number of the suicide bombings in Israel.