On the 22nd September 1980, the longest conventional war of the 20th Century began when Iraq launched an invasion of Iran. The Iraqi President, Saddam Hussein, dubbed it the ‘Whirlwind War’ in which he expected Iran to be defeated relatively swiftly.  However the war persisted for nearly 8 long and bloody years, and an estimated half a million soldiers and the same number of civilians were killed.

Having become President of Iraq in 1979, Saddam Hussein was keen to consolidate the power of his minority Sunni Muslim Ba’ath government.  However, at almost exactly the same time, Ayatollah Khomeini came to ...