Persian Gulf War
In March 1975, after years of more or less overt hostility, Iran and Iraq signed what appeared to be a comprehensive settlement of their differences, the Algiers Agreement. Under terms of the agreement, Iran undertook to cease supporting the Iraqi Kurds in their struggle against the Iraqi government. The agreement also promised a permanent resolution of the disputed border between the two nations, notably in the Shatt al Arab waterway, where it was agreed that it should follow the lowest or median point, the thalweg. For a few years, Baghdad and Tehran enjoyed a friendly relationship that was unprecedented, shattered only by the over-throw of the Iranian monarchy and the installation of the Islamic republic in 1979. Tensions mounted throughout 1979 and the first half of 1980, eventually leading to Iraqi president Saddam Hussein (b. 1937) ceremonially tearing up a copy of the Algiers Agreement on Iraqi television and setting in motion a war against Iran in September 1980.
The ten-year war that followed was both extremely costly and almost completely pointless. The bulk of the Iraqi Shiʿite population stood on the side of their nation rather than on the side of Shiʿa Islam (the form of Islam that predominates in Iran).
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