ABSTRACT
Conflicts in the Third World, the Iran-Iraq war is unusual in several respects. Most commonly cited are its costs in human life and economic resources, and its inordinate length. If Iran's revolution and its claims helped to precipitate the conflict, its definition of the absolute stakes that the war represented helped fuel it long after it made any sense. Iran's expulsion of Iraqi forces from its territory had been effected by mid-1982, yet the momentum of war and the drive to extend the sway of the Iranian revolution throughout the region prevailed over a more sober assessment of Iran's military capabilities. Soviet leaders, particularly Andrei Gromyko, repeatedly counselled Iranian officials that "three years of negotiation are better than one day of war." The destruction of an Iran-Air airbus by a US naval vessel's missile in early July provided a convenient occasion for the announcement of the decision to accept the cease-fire.
