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Moral Choice and the Iran-Iraq Conflict

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 September 2012

Gary Sick
Gary Sick
Affiliation:
GARY SICK served on the National Security Council staff under presidents Ford, Carter, and Reagan. He was the principal White House Aide for Iran during the Iranian Revolution and the hostage crisis, and is the author of All Fall Down: America's Tragic Encounter with Iran (New York: Random House, 1985). He is Adjunct Professor of Middle East Politics and a Fellow of the Research Institute on International Change at Columbia University.
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Abstract

In this analysis of the Iran-Iraq war, Sick asserts that two major naturally wealthy regional powers consciously chose to forego diplomatic means to resolve their disputes. Moreover, by blatantly miscalculating and underestimating the damage of armed engagement, the leaders exhibited utter negligence and disobedience of the international code of conduct. With glaring lack of consideration for human anguish in the military attacks, they used children in battle, launched bombing and missile attacks on civilian targets and neutral shipping, and deployed chemical weapons. Implicated as well is the international community, which did little to stem the bloodshed.

Type
Articles
Information
Ethics & International Affairs , Volume 3 , March 1989 , pp. 117 - 133
Copyright
© Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs 1989

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References

1 Hoffmann, Stanley, “Superpower Ethics: The Rules of the Game,” Ethics & International Affairs, Vol. 1 (1987) p. 37CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Speech, March 24, 1980. Cited in Ramazani, R. K., Revolutionary Iran: Challenge and Response in the Middle East (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986) p. 24Google Scholar.

3 Speech, February 8, 1979. Cited in Chubin, Shahram and Tripp, Charles, Iran and Iraq at War (London: I.B. Tauris, 1988) p. 25Google Scholar.

4 Ibid., p. 27. Statements made April 4 and 9, 1980Google Scholar.

5 For a detailed analysis of the military performance of both sides, see O'Ballance, Edgar, The Gulf War (London: Brassey's, 1988)Google Scholar.

6 For a concise summary of U.N. activities during the war, see the paper by Ralph King in The United Nations and the Iran-Iraq War, eds. Brian Urquhart and Gary Sick (New York: Ford Foundation Conference Report, August 1987) pp. 7–27Google Scholar.

7 At least one authority maintains that Iraq's intention from the beginning was to conduct a “demonstrative war” for limited objectives, based on a profound misreading of Khomeini's rule that quickly became apparent. See Chubin and Tripp, op. cit., p. 54Google Scholar.

8 Statement of June 20, 1982. Cited in O'Ballance, op. cit., p. 86. In fact, Iraq continued to hold several hundred square miles of Iranian territory at strategic points along the borderGoogle Scholar.

9 Although Algeria never published the results of its investigations, the basic facts were known to many in the diplomatic community. During 1987, the author interviewed several individuals who were familiar with these events, on condition of non-attributionGoogle Scholar.

10 An Iraqi Mirage pilot, Captain Zuhayr Mohammed Said al-Audisi, was captured by Iran on February 2, 1987, when his plane crashed in Iranian territory. He reportedly told Iranian interrogators that an Iraqi MiG-25 fighter piloted by Lieutenant Colonel Abdullah Faraj was ordered in early May 1982 to fly toward the Iranian-Turkish border, where the Iraqi government knew that Algerian Foreign Minister Benyahia's aircraft would pass. The aircraft was shot down with a Soviet air-to-air missile. Foreign Broadcast Information Service, Daily Report: Near East and South Asia (FBIS), May 22, 1987Google Scholar.

11 For a general discussion of the morality of such actions in war, see Walzer, Michael, Just and Unjust Wars (New York: Basic Books, 1977)Google Scholar.

12 United Nations Security Council document (S/18852), May 8, 1987Google Scholar.

13 Letter to the secretary general of March 28, 1988 (FBIS), March 30, 1988Google Scholar.

14 See, for example, the statement of a U.S. spokesman at the January 1989 Paris Conference on Chemical Weapons, The New York Times, January 12, 1989, p. 10Google Scholar.

15 Iraq stoutly denied that chemical weapons were used in the campaign against the Kurds. The United States claimed to have intelligence indicating that such weapons were used. Responsible Turkish authorities, in private discussions with the author in the fall of 1988, confirmed the likelihood of chemical attacks, if only on a scale intended to panic the Kurdish population into fleeing from their villages and military positionsGoogle Scholar.

16 After the ceasefire, Iran reported the following total casualties: 123,000 soldiers killed; 11,000 civilians killed; 61,000 individuals missing; 70,000 maimed or disabled. In addition, there were probably 300,000 or more wounded. Iraq has released no casualty figures, but they are estimated to be roughly one-half to two-thirds of the Iranian totalsGoogle Scholar.