The Iran-Iraq War as a Lens to Understand Khomeini

Abstract

This chapter should be seen as a conclusionary chapter. Myriad studies have already studied the Iran-Iraq war and Khomeini’s ideology (for instance see: Hiro, D. (1990). The longest war: The Iran-Iraq military conflict. The longest war: The Iran-Iraq Military conflict: Paladin. Willett, E. (2003). Ayatollah Khomeini, Rosen Publishing Group; Bakhash, S. (2004). The troubled relationship: Iran and Iraq, 1930–80. In Iran, Iraq, and the legacies of war (pp. 11–28), Palgrave Macmillan; Harmon, D., & Todd, A. (2009). Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, spiritual leaders and thinkers series, Infobase Publishing; Moin, B. (2009). Khomeini: Life of the Ayatollah, I.B. Tauris; Razouxand, P., & Elliott, N. (2015). The Iran-Iraq war, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press). However, few studies investigated Khomeini’s ideology through the lens of the Iran-Iraq war. Therefore, by analysing Khomeini’s words during the Iran-Iraq war, this book addressed this gap in the literature. Additionally, such an investigation helped us to shed light on Khomeini’s views on matters such as nationalism, sectarianism and the continuation of the war.