A geopolitical reading of the role of regional, trans-regional and international factors in the beginning, continuation and end of Iraq's imposed war against the Islamic Republic of Iran

Iran and Iraq, two large and mainly Shia countries in the Middle East, experienced one of the biggest wars of the second half of this century in the 20th century. About the reasons for the formation of the war between the two countries, such as the geopolitical isolation of Iraq due to the geography of this country in the lack of proper access to the open seas compared to other countries in the Persian Gulf; The increase in oil revenues of this country in the 1350s; equipping and modernizing the army of this country; The desire of the leadership of the Arab world, in addition to confronting the Shia religious government that emerged from the Islamic Revolution of Iran, has always been raised to prevent it from spreading to the Iraqi Shia majority, which has important goals in the form of increasing regional power and authority in the Persian Gulf, capturing and occupying Khuzestan as Iran's energy center sought to gain access to Arvandroud and turn it into an internal Iraqi river and ultimately lead the Arab world in the region. In this regard, various researches have investigated the dimensions and nature of the imposed war, the impact of complex historical, cultural, political and religious-ideological variables and its fate on the formation of Iraq's war against Iran; However, the current research is trying to explain the internal reasons for the formation of the war between the two countries and the role of regional, extra-regional and international powers on its beginning, continuation and end according to geopolitical theories. In order to achieve this task, the descriptive-analytical method and the method of collecting information in the form of library and documents have been used. The findings of the research indicate that in addition to Iraq's geopolitical ties and limitations, regional and extra-regional factors have also played a role in persuading this regime to attack Iran and continue the imposed war, which has been extensively investigated in this research.