Saddam Hussein, the United States, and the invasion of Iran: was there a green light?

Abstract

Since the Iraqi invasion of Iran in 1980, numerous observers and scholars have alleged that the United States ‘green-lighted’ Saddam Hussein's decision to go to war. This article scrutinises the green light thesis by examining US and Iraqi documents that have recently become available to scholars. These records reveal that the green light thesis has more basis in myth than in reality. Preoccupied with issues such as the Iran hostage crisis and the implications of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Carter administration officials neither expected nor welcomed Saddam's attack on Iran. The Iraqi dictator, for his part, believed that Washington would oppose rather than support his war.