The Iran-Iraq war was fought over the Shatt al-Arab waterway.

Evidence

What are these other problems? It might be useful to begin by looking at the long war which was fought between Iraq and Iran, two regional powers; a war which went on for many years and caused untold destruction to both parties. What were they fighting about? One could give many different answers, all of them in some measure, in some sense, true. We can look at it as a simple, oldfashioned territorial war, a war over turf, over the specific issue of the Shatt al- ‘Arab waterway—that piece of coast at the southern end of the two rivers of Iraq, at the northern end of the Persian Gulf, control of which was vital to both parties. This was certainly an important element in the war, and exemplifies one of the major themes of Middle Eastern conflicts: territorial disputes. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 1601

Categorization

Category: Factual Claims

• DEFINE: Introduces the Shatt al-Arab waterway and its strategic importance at the head of the Persian Gulf.

Related

• The Iran-Iraq war supports a multiplicity of partial explanations. (similarity 0.89)
• Ethnic and sectarian divides made the Iran-Iraq war multi-layered (similarity 0.78)