The Legal Practice of the Security Council in the Imposed War: Dominance of the Interests of the Great Powers over International Law

The war of Iraqi Ba’athist regime against Iran broke out in 1981 by the aggression of Saddam's regime against Iran. Regional and trans-regional actors influenced the processes involved in this war. In other words, it was the only international war in which all regional and trans-regional powers reached a theoretical and hardware consensus to defeat one side, Iran. In the meantime, the role of the Security Council in managing the crisis in the imposed war of iraqi Ba’athist regime against iran is quite significant. Accordingly, the main question of this research is: “what was the role of the UN Security Council, as the main custodian of international peace and security, in managing the war of Iraqi Ba’athist regime against Iran?” To answer this question in the context of neorealism, the researcher hypothesizes that: The UN Security Council was intended towards the interests of the great powers in managing the imposed war of iraqi Ba’athist regime against iran, and was not free to decide on the basis of the rules of collective security. In fact, from a neorealist view of international institutes, the Security Council acted not as an entity of providing collective security, but as an instrument in the hands of the great powers in the war of Iraqi Ba’athist regime against Iran.