Following the revolution and the hostage crisis, the apparent
instability of Iran did not go unnoticed by other international
actors. Eager to exploit an opportunity and regain access to
the Shatt al-Arab waterway (lost in the 1975 Algiers Agreement
with Iran), Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein ordered his
military forces to invade Iran in September 1980. The quick
war Saddam had envisioned was an extraordinary miscalculation;
it lasted eight years, making the Iran-Iraq War the
longest interstate conflict of the twentieth century—and one
of the deadliest. Conservative estimates put the combined
number of casualties at 367,000 dead (not including the
more than 100,000 civilians killed in the conflict) and over
700,000 wounded, though the real numbers may be considerably
higher.