Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait is not distant history, and its protagonists have not yet disappeared. Yet, despite that, it does not occupy the space it should in conversations around the crisis with Iran. From Iraq’s experience, I will highlight three points worth remembering.
First, the root of the problem was the expansionist ideology of the Baath regime and its belief that it had the right to direct the policies of an imagined nation that included neighboring states. This political doctrine led the state to use the country’s wealth for military projects that exceeded its capacities and went beyond what the balances of politics could allow. Iraq thus became a threat to its neighbors and to the interests of the great powers.
Second, the international political effort behind the first American war against Iraq was not completed overnight. The Baath regime survived for twelve years after Desert Storm, despite unfavorable international conditions: the collapse of the Eastern bloc, and the unprecedented international coalition that took part in the war, including all the regional states directly concerned.
Between 1992 and 2003, the United States worked gradually to undermine the regime and prepare an alternative. It did so through the economic blockade, support for local forces in Kurdistan and the south, and the gathering of the scattered Iraqi opposition abroad, in anticipation of the moment the regime would be toppled if Washington decided to do so.
Iraq, meanwhile, focused on propaganda. Domestically, it was not preoccupied with building a stronger and more inclusive front, but with the Faith Campaign, which recast the image of Saddam and of the Baath “faithful”. Abroad, through the usual voices, it busied itself with promoting its steadfastness in the face of the global conspiracy, directing anger toward its neighbors, and claiming victory.
The broad aspects of the Iraqi experience are now being repeated with Iran.
First, over the past years, since the assassination of Qassem Soleimani on January 3, 2020, Tehran’s regional claws have been clipped. It lost Syria, lost the greater part of Hezbollah’s capabilities, and its allies in Iraq received repeated military messages. Now the battle has moved onto Iranian territory itself - a prospect that no observer would have imagined only a few years ago. The comparison holds in this sense: major losses for Iran, and interim objectives achieved by its adversaries, but without a knockout blow.
The second resemblance lies in media behavior. Iraq claimed that it was one link in the chain of American failure in Vietnam and Indochina, and the narrative spread. There is an audience for this kind of narrative; there are elites skilled at formulating it, and ready-made accusations for anyone who challenges it. But its propaganda success did nothing to change reality.
Judging by the media behavior of Iran’s supporters, they seem to be on the verge of repeating Iraq’s experience for generations that did not live through it. They are sowing the seeds of a new narrative: “the regime’s victory against attempts to topple it.” The irony is that this is the very same narrative that hardliners in the Israeli government used to push the United States into adopting Israel’s policy toward Iran down to the last detail.
The third resemblance is that the policy that had left the Baath regime in place for years after Desert Storm was the exchange of oil flows for allowing food to go through: “oil for food.” We can see a similar formula emerging now.
Toppling the regime in Iran was an achievable objective, given the pace at which the most important levels of leadership were being eliminated at the start of the operations, and the scale of the infiltration that became clearly visible. The question that imposed itself was this: is this objective worth the price that the world would pay to achieve it immediately?
One of the errors of the debate is to treat the survival of the regime in Iran as synonymous with the Iran of 2017, while it is now a scarecrow of what it once was. One error of political analysis is to measure against what one wishes for, rather than against the balance of gains and damages.
