ABSTRACT
The Iran–Iraq War, which lasted eight years, from 1980–1988, is by far the largest and bloodiest conflict ever fought in the Middle East. Iraq, under Saddam Hussein and the Ba’ath party, invaded Iran in 1980 with the intention of waging a short war and suing quickly for an advantageous peace. By the end of 1982, Iraqi forces had been pushed back to the pre-war border and faced defending their own land against a numerically superior and highly motivated Iranian army, whose goal was the annihilation of the Ba’athist state and export of the Islamic Revolution. The flat alluvium of the southern front, which would be the most heavily contested sector of the war, presented military engineers with an almost blank canvas on which to shape a militarized landscape. The largest and most intensive earthworks were constructed by the Iraqis along the Iraqi side of the international border.
