TEHRAN — Yesterday marked the 46th anniversary of Saddam’s invasion of Iran. In the early days of the war, while standing on occupied Iranian soil near the country’s southwestern borders, Saddam told reporters that he would hold his next interview with them in Tehran a few days later.
Saddam’s delusion was not without reason. Iran had just gone through a turbulent revolution that had fundamentally transformed almost every pillar of the country, while many institutions were still in their infancy. Many senior army commanders had either fled the country or been arrested and put on trial. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had only recently been established, and many of its members had little to no military experience. As a result, Saddam and his adversaries did not consider the IRGC a force capable of confronting a full-scale foreign invasion.
Overall, Saddam believed he was facing a weakened Iran and that a swift and massive military offensive could force it into submission, delivering him a major and easy victory in a matter of days. That bloody delusion instead turned into an eight-year war, and Saddam achieved none of the objectives he had declared at the outset of the conflict.
Donald Trump, who is now waging war against Iran, bears undeniable similarities to Saddam. Trump, too, believed Iran was in a vulnerable and weakened state and that a swift and massive air campaign would finish the job. Saddam likewise began his war with a broad air offensive against dozens of military and civilian targets inside Iran, expecting to paralyze the country.
Trump and Saddam share another similarity. During the war, Saddam repeatedly committed war crimes by using Western-supplied chemical weapons, as well as through airstrikes on urban and civilian areas that killed Iranian civilians. Trump, too, has committed war crimes in the current war by attacking schools, universities, hospitals and other civilian targets in Iran. The strike on a school in Minab on the first day of the war, which killed more than 120 students, is just one example of these crimes.
Another similarity lies in their relationship with some of Iran’s southern neighbors. During the eight-year war, some Arab states along the Persian Gulf effectively became a golden financial fund for supporting Saddam’s war machine, helping him carry out his crimes. In the current war, these same countries have, by making their territory available to the U.S. military and providing other forms of wartime support to those attacking Iranian territory, effectively become accomplices to Trump and his crimes. Just as standing behind Saddam during that war brought these countries regret, they have now placed their bets on the losing horse and cannot escape the consequences of this mistake.
Another similarity between these two delusional and criminal men is their miscalculation of the Iranian people. Saddam believed that the Arab-speaking people of Khuzestan Province would roll out the red carpet for the invaders. Instead, they were among the first to stand against the invasion, mounting fierce resistance and leaving behind a lasting and historic legacy of defiance. Trump, too, imagined that once heavy airstrikes began, the Iranian people would pour into the streets and complete his plan to overthrow the Islamic Republic of Iran. He openly voiced this expectation repeatedly and, on one occasion, even expressed surprise and frustration, in anger, over why the Iranian people were not rising up in revolt.
The Iraqi dictator met an instructive end. Iraqi sources say that when he was taken to the site of his execution and the noose was placed around his neck, he was hurling insults and blaming Iran for the humiliating end that had befallen him. Trump will see the shadow of Iran’s revenge following him for the rest of his life, and he may mutter curses under his breath to ease his fear and desperation. The world has no capacity for settling scores with these two great criminals of history. In hell, they would make suitable neighbors.
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