ISBN:
9781615311125
Language:
English
Pages:
1 Online-Ressource (82 pages)
Edition:
1st ed
Series Statement:
Understanding Iran
Parallel Title:
Print version Wolny, Philip Iran And Iraq: Religion, War, And Geopolitics
DDC:
303.48/2550567
Keywords:
Iran-Relations-Iraq
;
Iran-Relations-United States
;
Iraq War, 2003-2011
;
Iraq-Relations-Iran
;
Shiites-Iraq
;
United States-Relations-Iran
Abstract:
Iran and Iraq, though neighbors for many centuries, share both a common and a contentious history. Though both are Muslim nations, they have long been divided by their differing affiliations with the Shia and Sunni branches of Islam and by a cultural tension between Persian and Arab. These tensions have occasionally erupted into all-out warfare, most recently in the 1980s, when half a million Iraqis and Iranians were killed in a decade-long war. Today, however, following the toppling of the repressive Sunni dictator Saddam Hussein, Iraq's previously oppressed Shia majority is forging ties with Shia-dominated Iran and creating a new, potentially destabilizing balance of power in this part of the Middle East. This book explores the long, rich, complex, and charged history between these two Muslim nations and analyzes what path they seem to be heading down in the future, a journey that has weighty consequences for the western world and the United States
Abstract:
Cover -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- Introduction -- Chapter One Neighbors and Enemies -- Oil, the Shah, and the Ayatollah -- The Islamic Revolution -- Iraq and the Iranian Revolution -- At the Brink of War -- The War Years: Iraq Invades Iran -- War of the Cities, War of the Tankers -- In the End, a Stalemate -- The Battle of al-Qadisiyah -- Chapter Two The United States and Iran: A Troubled History -- Decades of Tension -- Iran's Supreme Leader: Ali Khamenei -- Iran and "Operation Enduring Freedom" -- The "Axis of Evil" -- On the Eve of War -- Rise of the Conservatives -- The Nuclear Question -- Chapter Three Iran and Its Iraqi Exiles -- The Iraqi Opposition in Iran -- The Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) -- The Badr Brigade -- Possibility for Collaboration -- A Reality Check for the United States -- Velayat-e-Faqih: "Guardianship of the Jurist" -- Chapter Four Operation Iraqi Freedom -- Return of the Exiles -- The Real War Begins -- The "Grand Bargain" -- A Growing Insurgency -- The Bombing of al-Askari Mosque -- The Mahdi Army -- Recent Clashes -- Chapter Five Iran and the Rise of the Shia -- On the Same Side -- "Shiastan" -- Spreading the Wealth -- Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani: The Cautious Moderate -- Foreign Fighters and the Insurgency -- The Shia South -- Killer EFPs: Made in Iran? -- The Hunt for Jafari -- Chapter Six The Road Ahead -- An Uncertain Future -- GLOSSARY -- FOR MORE INFORMATION -- Web Sites -- FOR FURTHER READING -- BIBLIOGRAPHY -- INDEX -- About the Author -- Photo Credits
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