Israel and the Iran-Iraq War

Abstract

The Iran-Iraq War appears to have affected Israel strategically in a number of significant ways. Perhaps most critically, by pitting two hostile states and their allies against one another for eight years, the war gave Israel a ‘strategic breather’. Here it juxtaposed favourably with additional regional events, such as the peace with Egypt, in reducing the regional threat to Israel. But this window of opportunity, and the fact that Israel did not exploit it in order to prepare both for war and for peace, are beyond the scope of this inquiry. Here we shall focus only on the direct relationship between Israel and the Gulf War.¹