By July 1988, after suffering crippling damage to its economic
infrastructure, enduring an immense loss of human life,
and fearing more direct intervention by American and international
forces in favor of Saddam Hussein, Ayatollah Khomeini
agreed to a UN-sponsored ceasefire, effectively ending
the war.12 The Iran-Iraq War galvanized the Iranian people,
helped Khomeini consolidate power, and consequently
shaped the construction of Iran in Islamic terms