A Brief History
On September 22, 1980, Iraq invaded their neighbor, Iran, seeking to take advantage of the disruption caused by the Iranian revolution. The resulting war lasted 8 years and cost each country around a half million people each, with no change in territory and no clear winner.
Digging Deeper
Today, we ask you, “What was the most miscalculated invasion in history?” and we give some examples to choose from, although you can name your own:
US Invasions of Canada, 1775 and 1812
French Invasion of Russia, 1812
French Invasion of Germany/Prussia, 1870
Soviet Invasion of Finland, 1939
German Invasion of Soviet Union, 1941
North Korean Invasion of South Korea, 1950
Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan, 1979
Iraq Invasion of Kuwait, 1990
US Invasion of Iraq, 2003
Russian Invasion of Ukraine, 2022
Question for students (and subscribers): Was the US justified in invading Iraq in 2003? Was that invasion worth the cost? Please let us know in the comments section below this article.
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Dimbleby, Jonathan. Barbarossa: How Hitler Lost the War. Viking, 2021.
Easton, Ian. The Chinese Invasion Threat: Taiwan’s Defense and American Strategy in Asia. Eastbridge Books. 2019.
The featured image in this article, an Iraq–Kuwait locator map by Izzedine, is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
You can also watch video versions of this article on YouTube.