Iran Iraq War
The Iran and Iraq War was a violent war that started September 1980 and finished August 1988. ... These arguments between Iran and Iraq were not new and actually date back before each country was established. Iran is sixteenth in size among the countries of the world. ... Iran is also one of the world’s oldest countries (World Book Millennium 2000 page 398). ... Iran is in southwestern Asia and is bordered on the north by Armenia, Azerbaijan, the Caspian Sea, and Turkmenistan. On the eastern side of Iran is Afghanistan and Pakistan. ... On the west is Iraq and Turkey. Iran is one of the worlds most mountainous countries. Two-thirds of the land in Iran is not very good for growing crops because it is either too steep or too dry. ... Iran has to import large amounts of food to feed their people. Also, there are not as many automobiles in Iran as there are in the United States. For every one thousand people in Iran, there are only forty-one cars. ... Modern Persian is the official language of Iran. ... The money from the oil was used to develop Iran into a more modern country with more wealth. ... The social, political, and economic parts of Iran changed when the new government took over. ... Followers of a person named Ayatollah Khomeini led a revolution to take over control of the country and throw out the leader of Iran, Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi. Khomeini and his supporters were successful in that attempt and he took over power of Iran. Khomeini was a Shiite religious leader who had been thrown out of Iran in 1964 and had lived in Iraq during that time (Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia). After Khomeini had lived in Iraq for many years, the Iraqi government also threw Khomeini out of their country. This happened in 1977 and his supporters eventually led the attack on the Shaw of Iran. The Ayatollah Khomeini was the leader of Iran at the time of the attack by Iraq. Iraq is a much smaller country than Iran. Iraq is only about the size of California. To get Iraq to be the same size as Iran you would have to add Arizona, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, and Idaho to Iraq. Iran’s size is almost four times bigger than Iraq. Iraq has a population of about twenty-two million people as of July 2000. The capital of Iraq is Baghdad. Baghdad is the largest city in Iraq and is on the Tigris River and it has about 5 million people that live there. ... Turkey surrounds Iraq on the north, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait on the south, Iran on the east, Syria and Jordan on the west. The official language of Iraq is Arabic. ... Ninety-seven percent of Iraq’s population is of the Muslim faith. ... Iraq is primarily an agricultural country and about twelve percent of the land is being used to grow crops such as barley, rice, wheat, and dates.