Next year sees the 35th anniversary of the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq War, when the armies of the Iraqi Ba’athist dictatorship invaded Iran hoping for a quick and easy victory over the regime of the ayatollahs. 

It didn’t happen. Eight years of barbaric conflict left the economies and infrastructure of both countries in ruins and an estimated 3 million soldiers and civilians dead and injured — nearly 5 per cent of the population. 

But, by comparison with other conflicts of the 20th century, little beyond limited specialist studies have been published and the long slaughter has earned the label “The forgotten war.” 

This is why the contribution of US military historians Williamson Murray and Kevin Woods in this book on the war has been hailed as ground-breaking. The detailed chronological account synthesises and meticulously references previous research. But its outstanding feature is that it is drawn for the first time from the cache of Iraqi government records “captured” in Baghdad following the 2003 US invasion. 

The authors have carefully selected 200-plus documents from the many thousands available to profile the perceptions and attitude of Saddam and those closest to him. The result makes chilling reading — mass slaughter on the battle­fields, psychopathic torture and execution of Iraqi commanders and regular soldiers deemed to have “failed” in their duty, the systematic use of chemical weapons on troops and civilians alike — all are coldly and proudly justified. 

Other sources depict the tactic of Iran’s dictatorship in its war until victory — the “martyrdom” of countless thousands, including children, who were “sacrificed” to walk across enemy minefields, allegedly with plastic keys to paradise round their necks. 

There is, however, more missing from the account than is included. The premise that this was a struggle between regimes with deeply opposed world views, with mutual slaughter caused by the ambitions of flawed and deluded leaders, limits and distorts our understanding. 

Both regimes shared the world view that war would serve to consolidate their power, enabling them to pursue their narrow class interests at home and in the region regardless of the cost. 

For the US and its allies the war served to prevent left, democratic and progressive forces gaining any vestige of power in either country — a prerequisite of continued exploitation of the Middle East. To this end, they shamelessly supplied arms and intelligence to both sides to destroy the aspirations and potential of a generation. 

The brutal suppression of communists and others on the left, under the guise of war, is confined to a few casual references and footnotes, as are the massive profits of international military-industrial complexes from the $200 billion — today’s value — derived from 1986-88 alone. 

No wonder the war is “forgotten.” We should expose it, not bury it. There is clearly ample evidence. 

Liz Payne

• Liz Payne is vice-chair of the Communist Party of Britain and a member of its International Commission.