الرؤية البريطانية للحرب العراقية الايرانية 1980–1988

Abstract EN

British interests have strategic relations with the Arabian Gulf region as part of its vital interests in Asia and the Pacific, Britain has been strengthening these interests since the seventeenth century, and after a long conflict with the other colonial powers, Britain was able to assert full control over the Persian Gulf throughout the nineteenth and most twentieth centuries.

Britain sought to maintain the balance and stability of the region and increased this quest after its full withdrawal from the Gulf region in late 1971, so the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq war in 1980 was a real threat to the balance sought by Britain in the region.

Because of its long history, Britain's policy and vision for this war has had an important impact in drawing the attention of the international community towards this war and the way it deals with both sides of the war.

Since the early days of the war, Britain has worked to neutralize its policies towards Iraq and Iran and called on the international community to abide by this neutrality and call for the need to end this conflict as soon as possible because it poses a real threat to international interests in the Arabian Gulf as the world's main oil supplier.

It seems that the British vision of the war did not match the real reality of its policies towards both sides of the war.

Britain has maintained its political, economic and military relations with Iraq and Iran alike.

Britain also provided military assistance to both sides, but this support was halted with Iran after British politicians felt that the Iranian victory in the war meant that Iran took control of the entire Gulf region while cooperation with Iraq continued until the end of the war in 1988.

After that date, Britain retreated from military and technical cooperation with Iraq after discovering that Iraq had begun to develop its missile and destructive weapons in a remarkable way, especially in the chemical and nuclear fields.