The Iran–Iraq war began in September 1980. In December 1980, UN Secretary GeneralKurt Waldheim appealed to Iran and Iraq to ensure the security of peaceful shipping in the Persian Gulf. At that time, Iran assured other countries that it would keep the Strait of Hormuz open.
In 1981, Iraq began attacking commercial shipping to undermine Iran's war effort. First, Iraqi forces targeted vessels transporting military supplies to the Iranian ground forces. Later, they expanded their campaign and attacked ships carrying Iranian exports. Iran retaliated by attacking vessels of Iraq's trading partners and countries that provided financial support to Iraq. The first phase of the Tanker War began in May 1981, when Iraq declared that they will attack all ships traveling to or from Iranian ports in the northern Persian Gulf. To enforce this threat, Iraq relied primarily on air power, using its Super Frelon helicopters and F-1 Mirage and MiG-23 fighter aircraft armed with Exocet anti-ship cruise missiles. Between 1981 and 1983, however, Iranian forces generally refrained from retaliation.
In 1984, Iraq broadened the tanker war by attacking the oil terminal and oil tankers at Kharg Island. Iraq's aim in attacking Iranian shipping was to provoke the Iranians to retaliate with extreme measures, such as closing the Strait of Hormuz to all maritime traffic, thereby bringing about foreign intervention against Iran.
In response, Iran began attacking tankers traveling to and from Kuwait and other Gulf Arab states that supported Iraq's war effort. As Iranian attacks intensified, Kuwait sought external protection for its shipping and began negotiating with the Soviet Union to provide naval escorts for its tankers.
The United States had threatened several times to intervene if the Strait of Hormuz were closed. Kuwait and Saudi Arabia supported Iraq against Iran. The United States intervened in the conflict in 1986 to protect Kuwaiti tankers, and engaged in a confrontation with Iran.
Both sides had declared an "exclusion zone", meaning areas in which they had warned ships from entering. Iraq declared the area around Iran's Kharg Island to be an exclusion zone. Kharg Island hosted Iran's principal oil shipment port. Iraq gave precise definition, in coordinates, of this exclusion zone and gave advance notification to all countries. However, Iraq did not designate any safe passage routes in this zone.
Iran declared all waters within 40 miles of its coast to be its exclusion zone. It instructed ships headed for non-Iranian ports to sail west of this line. While Iran also did not designate any safe passages in its exclusion zone, this was unnecessary. Iran's exclusion zone allowed for ships to enter and exit the Gulf, and essentially only kept such foreign ships out of its own waters. Iran's exclusion zone made it easier for Iraq to target Iranian ships. It allowed Iraq to assume that any ship in Iran's territorial waters must be going to (or coming from) an Iranian port.
War studies scholar Stephen Phillips writes that "In January 1987, the Kuwaiti government proposed a clever scheme to deter Iranian attacks against their shipping. They asked the United States if they could reflag Kuwaiti tankers as American and receive the protection of the U.S. Navy. The administration of President Ronald Reagan debated this idea but finally agreed to it on March 7, 1987." These are known to O'Rourke as "reflagged Kuwaiti ships". On 17 May 1987, 37 US sailors were killed in an Iraqi aircraft attack on the USS Stark. Iraqi president Saddam Hussein apologized, saying that the pilot had mistaken the US vessel for an Iranian tanker.
United Nations Security Council Resolution 598, was adopted unanimously on 20 July 1987, which engendered Operation Earnest Will (24 July 1987 – 26 September 1988), a successful US effort to protect Kuwaiti merchant shipping, because as noted by O'Rourke: "Aside from Iranian shipping, the most frequent victims have been ships steaming under the world's predominant flags of convenience." Western-led convoy tactics with armed guard vessels were used for protection in the latter stages of the Tanker War. In 1987, the use of towed, radar-deflecting decoys and other passive countermeasures was successfully initiated.
In total, well over 100 sailors were killed and a similar number wounded. More than 30 million tons of cargo was damaged from 1981 to 1987. In 1987, during the conflict, Iran perfected the art of speedboat attacks, and concentrated "their fire on the crew compartments of their target ships." Iran also used Chinese-made shore-based Silkworm missiles to good effect.
1234567891011O'Rourke, Ronald (May 1988). "The Tanker War". Proceedings of the USNI. 114 (5): 1023. Archived from the original on 30 November 2024. Retrieved 23 September 2024.
12Roach, J. Ashley; Greenwood, Christopher J.; Lagoni, Rainer; Meron, Theodor (20–23 April 1988), "Missiles on Target; the Law of Targeting and the Tanker War", Proceedings of the ASIL Annual Meeting, 82: 154–169, doi:10.1017/S0272503700072980, JSTOR25658421, S2CID159309793
↑Phillips, Stephen (20 March 2024). "Revisiting the Tanker War". War on the Rocks. Archived from the original on 26 September 2024. Retrieved 23 September 2024.
Boczek, Boleslaw Adam (1989). "Law of Warfare at Sea and Neutrality:Lessons from the Gulf War". Ocean Development and International Law. 20 (3): 239–271. doi:10.1080/00908328909545892.
Dekker, Ige F.; Post, Harry H. G., eds. (1992). The Gulf War of 1980-1988: The Iran-Iraq War in International Legal Perspective. Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff. ISBN0-7923-1334-8.
Leckow, Ross (July 1988). "The Iran-Iraq Conflict in the Gulf: The Law of War Zones". International & Comparative Law Quarterly. 37 (3): 629–644. doi:10.1093/iclqaj/37.3.629.
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El-Shazly, Nadia El-Sayed (1998), The Gulf Tanker War: Iran and Iraq's Maritime Swordplay, Springer, ISBN9781349263042
Navias, Martin S.; Hooton, E. R. (1996), Tanker Wars: Assault on Merchant Shipping During the Iran-Iraq Crisis, 1980-88, Bloomsbury Academic, ISBN9781860640322
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Iran
Ba'athist Iraq
United States
Saudi Arabia
Kuwait
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