Document Type : scientific-research article
Author
دانشگاه فردوسی مشهد
Abstract
The Iraq–Iran War was the outcome of the interaction of geographical, geopolitical, economic, military, and cultural factors operating at individual, national, and international levels. This study seeks to identify and explain the principal universal drivers of conflict and to determine the key causes of the outbreak of the Iraq–Iran War from the perspective of various theoretical schools. The research adopts a qualitative, multi-stage approach, using a descriptive–analytical method. In the first stage, the major theoretical and general causes of war were extracted by drawing on conflict-analysis perspectives, including geopolitics, realism, neorealism, Marxism, constructivism, and psychological approaches. Subsequently, 87 scholarly works on the Iran–Iraq War, selected through maximum variation sampling from Persian-language sources, were examined using qualitative content analysis. The coding process led to the identification of 18 core components as the primary causes of the war and enabled assessment of their correspondence with the theoretical schools of conflict.The findings indicate that explaining the roots of the Iraq–Iran War is inherently complex and multidimensional and cannot be reduced to any single theory. Accordingly, geopolitical approaches attribute the war to territorial disputes, geo-economic competition, cultural confrontations, and the role of global powers. Marxist interpretations highlight the importance of Khuzestan’s oil resources and the role of Ba’athist elites, whereas realist perspectives emphasize Saddam Hussein’s psychological characteristics, the expansionist nature of the Ba’ath regime, and perceived threats from the Iranian Revolution. Neorealism focuses on the regional imbalance of power and superpower support for Iraq; constructivism underscores Arab–Persian identity cleavages and hostile discourses; and psychological approaches consider Saddam’s ambition and narcissism as central to his decision-making.The study’s main contribution lies in integrating theoretical analysis with qualitative content analysis of existing scholarship and in extracting a systematic set of causal components, thereby offering a comprehensive and synthesized account of the drivers of the war.
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