ABSTRACT
The decision-maker’s psychological make-up plays a decisive role in sifting through the various factors, discarding one and focusing on another, until a decision is finally reached – a decision which initially seemed as though it were spontaneous, easy and immediate. Any decision, regardless of its triviality, is the outcome of an interaction between many, sometimes contradictory, considerations. Decisions which appear to others as a blind passion for greatness and a destructive love of adventure appear to Saddam Hussein as no more than a natural quest for security and peace. The war waged by Saddam Hussein in defence of his regime turned into a war to protect the ‘eastern gateway to the Arab nation’. At the end of the war, Saddam emerged on the Arab scene as the most prominent Arab leader without a rival. The position of the superpowers and the industrialized nations on the Iraqi-Iranian war can in general be summarized by the famous Arab proverb.
