The Iran-Iraq War: Geopolitical Economy of the Conflict

An almost eight years of war complicated socio-economic and political problems in the region like never before. Strategically, the Iran-Iraq war was one of the worst military encounters of the twentieth century which, apart from others, severely threatened the oil interests of the two countries. In other words, the consequences of the conflict were particularly visible on the political economy as the warring sides, which account for one fifth of the world's oil reserves, failed to achieve their real status in the international arena. As this article intends to show, since the victory of Iran could affect the oil interests of the United States and its hardcore regional ally, Saudi Arabia, they left no stone unturned to take advantage of the conflict with their direct or indirect support to Iraq and then abandoning them with deep wounds. The article by using assumptions such as “Political Economy of Conflict” and collecting documentary data from the Iran-Iraq War shows that while the conflict in the short-term caused huge loss of resources to the two countries, it damaged the Iranian political economy adversely. The study concludes that the war deprived both Iran and Iraq not only of their influence in the global oil markets but smashed up their international political economy in the medium term, as well.