"Certain aspects of the Iran-Iraq conflict — including trench warfare, barbed-wire fences and soldiers attacking machine-gun emplacements across open ground — echoed the fighting of the First World War. But there were some sinister innovations, such as Iran’s sending of human waves of young boys — who were told that they would become ‘martyrs’ if they were killed - across minefields. No less horrific was Saddam’s profligate use of chemical weapons against the advancing Iranian troops. The conflict settled into a war of attrition. By the time a ceasefire was agreed, in July 1988, both sides were effectively back where they had begun — with over a million lives lost."
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Original Language: English
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Sources
Simon Sebag Montefiore, Monsters: History's Most Evil Men and Women (2009), p. 354
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Iran-Iraq_War
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Iran-Iraq War
Iran-Iraq War (also known as the First Gulf War) was an armed conflict between Iran and Iraq that lasted from September 1980 to August 1988, making it the 20th century's longest conventional war. Active hostilities began with the Iraqi invasion of Iran and lasted for eight years, until the acceptance of United Nations Security Council Resolution 598 by both sides. Iraq's primary rationale for the attack against Iran cited the need to prevent Ruhollah Khomeini—who had spearheaded the Iranian Revo
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