This military history of the Middle East's longest war, by a professor of national security at the US Army War College, pays some attention to political issues (e.g., Iraq's motivations in invading Iran, Iran's reliance on powerful ideological defense mechanisms, and the US's zigzag behavior during the war), but the book's long suit is its focus on the belligerents' strategy and tactics. The work may be compared to Anthony Cordesman and Abraham Wagner's major study, The Lessons of Modern War, Vol. 2: The Iran-Iraq War (1990). Pelletierre concludes that while the Iraqi army took six years to do it, it "had matured, it had become modern," because the General Staff finally figured out how to use and deploy the country's sophisticated weapons. With Saddam trying to micromanage the war, like Stalin after the Nazi invasion of the USSR, the Iraqis proved inept for a long time, but superior air power, US logistical and diplomatic support for Iraq (underplayed here), and the exhaustion of Iranian irregular forces, finally proved a winning combination. Pelletierre concludes with two somewhat contradictory observations: (1) the Iraqi army survived as a modern army after Operation Desert Storm, restoring Baghdad's authority in most of the country after the war; (2) Desert Storm created a power vacuum in the region akin to that produced after WW I, with the Americans filling it this time rather that the British.
. . . Pelletiere successfully counters the common perception that Iraq won a war of attrition through luck, persistence and the use of chemicals. . . . Pelletiere brings to light a fundamental element of the Iran-Iraq War ignored by those who attribute Iran's defeat to attrition, bad luck and chemical vulnerability. . . anyone wishing for a basic understanding of how the Hama Rule applies to the Iran-Iraq war should read this book.
This is an instructive and well-written study of the first Gulf war, that seeks to go beyond the straight military or chronological approaches that have governed much of what has appeared on that conflict.
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This book is a major reinterpretation of the Iran-Iraq War and is a source for reexamining the U.S. involvement in the Gulf. Pelletiere demonstrates that the war was not a standoff in which Iraq finally won a grinding war of attrition through luck, persistence, and the use of poison gas. Instead, Iraq "planned the last campaign almost two years prior to its unfolding. [The Iraqis] trained extensively and expended enormous sums of money to make their effort succeed. What won for them was their superior fignting prowess and greater commitment. Gas--if it was used at all--played only a minor part in the victory.'' Pelletiere concludes that the key to understanding the war is the Extraordinary Congress of the Ba'th Party held in July 1986. It was there that the initial planning for the final campaign was done, and this campaign is what decided the fate of the conflict. The study centers around the last Iraqi campaign, which Pelletiere argues was based upon World War II "blitzkrieg tactics," but he also treats the background, the politics, and the history of the conflict, and analyzes the significance of the war to the Middle East and to the position of the United States there.
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