The role of Iran-Iraq geographical variables in the imposed war
The imposed war of September 1980, which was led by Saddam has been designed to intimidate and inflict human casualties and to try to occupy Khuzestan in order to advance a political and military objective. Hence; the Iraqi Ba'athist regime with the support and guidance of Western governments in order to counter the rise of the Islamic Revolution by launching an imposed war and taking advantage of Iran's specific geopolitical position, tried to counteract and reduce its power by any possible invasion of Iran's geographical borders. The main question of this study is: what role did the geographical variables of the two countries of Iran and Iraq play in the imposed war?The purpose of this study is to investigate the geographical variables and their impact on the outcome of military operations. This study is a descriptive-analytical one and its main achievement is that: Saddam's Ba'athist regime because of the geopolitical vacuum and the lack of access to free waters and due to its harsh climatic conditions at the near of Iranian borders, with open and clandestine support of Western and neighboring governments attempted to occupy Iran which failed to achieve its own sinister goals under the leadership of Imam Khomeini and the resistance of Iranian people and their revolutionary and Islamic ideology. Thus, at the end of the war, the sovereignty and geographical boundaries of Iran has been saved from the loot and plunder of plunderers.