Hiro Dilip. The Longest War: The Iran-Iraq Military Conflict

Routledge, 1991. — 323 p.When President Saddam Hussein of Iraq attacked Iran in September 1980 he expected victory within three weeks. Eight years and more than a million casualties later, the conflict ended, with the same regimes in power. The fortunes of war brought great changes, with the involvement not just of the Arab states of the Gulf, but also the nations and superpowers of both the East and West. Having emerged unscathed from the conflict, Hussein combined his threats against Israel with an invasion of Kuwait in August 1990. In describing the causes and courses of the war and its effect on the two antagonists--as well as the rest of the world--Dilip Hiro lays bare the intricate twists and turns of international diplomacy, and reveals the realpolitik behind the rhetoric.