First Gulf War (1983: Doomsday)

The First Gulf War (called the Iran-Iraq War by Western media at the time) was a large war fought between Iran and Kurdistan on one side, and Iraq on the other. The war was the result of Iraq’s invasion of Iran on 22 September 1980 following a long history of border disputes and fears of Shia insurgency among Iraq's long suppressed Shia majority influenced by Iran's Islamic revolution. Although Iraq hoped to take advantage of revolutionary chaos in Iran and attacked without formal warning, they made only limited progress into Iran and within several months were repelled by the Iranians who regained virtually all lost territory by June 1982.

Although Iraq was hopeful to regain these areas by 1983 the sudden drop in foreign military aid from the western nations had hindered these efforts. To make matters worse with most of northern turkey destroyed, a once suppressed Turkish Kurdishstan had joined the war on Iran’s side in order to reunite with Kurdish majority areas of Iraq. With Iranian forces closing in from the south and an ever persistent Kurdish insurgency in the north, it became apparent the Iraq could not win this war. Saddam Hussein’s forces eventually surrendered on December 16th 1987.

In the aftermath of the war Iraq was forced to surrender its disputed territory to Iran, and allow the Kurdish majority regions join with Turkish Kurdishstan. It also marked the beginning of the large scale militarization of Iraqis remaining provinces, which would go on to spark the next Gulf War with Kuwait.