Rethinking Iran's and Iraq's National Strategic Management in the Holy Defense as Viewed by the International Experts

One of the most important issues debated in any military engagement, and understandably in Iran-Iraq war is the macro and national strategies, which both countries adopted during their military engagement in order to achieve their intended result, and adopted them as the basis of their own defensive and offensive movements. Discovering, analyzing and rating these strategies is something in which experts and thinkers in various fields including military, economic, social, political...etc. are most importantly interested. So far, many foreign theoreticians and analysts have addressed the Iran-Iraq war in strategic point of view, producing various works in this field. The merit that lies in studying and searching these works is getting introduced to different views and perspectives on the Holy Defense, extending internal analyses, comparing and contrasting the adopted strategies, updating prior experiences, as well as removing the doubts instilled into one’s minds. The objective of this article is to explain and study the elements of national strategies of both parties to war as viewed by foreign experts. This research uses analytical-descriptive method, addressing the national strategies and strategic management of both Iran and Iraq throughout the war according as they are viewed by international thinkers. The result achieved out of the studies is that the nature of wars including the Iran-Iraq war is different due to its being under the influence of differing political, social and cultural contexts, hence leading to different strategies on the part of the two parties to the war.