Part 3

1980 to 2004 in the Iran/Iraq War (the Original Gulf War (of modern times))

Fisk begins Chapter Six discussing his arrival at Basra, the Shatt al-‘Arab and the Fao Peninsula to report on the beginnings of the Iran-Iraq (or Gulf) War in September and October of 1980 (the official starting months). A map of the two countries together is included with many border and other localities shown. He notes that the sides were somewhat evenly matched (in the last chapter, I think) and the stalemated nature of the war he describes in the south of both countries with the Iraqis barely making any headway into Iran at all seems to bear this out. The first major town in the south to fall was Khorramshahr (al-Mohammorah to the local Arabs) in early October and Fisk notes his immediate visit with the invaders. At various times he also refers to visits to Amara, Amman and Kuwait and the region of Dezful in the early months and years of the war. He also refers to a 1980 interview with an Iranian Ayatollah Beheshti (who died before this war) and a 1982 visit to Tehran. Fisk stresses the focus of the Iraqis on Arabic-speaking Iranian areas in the south that were also the most strategically important areas for both countries and Saddam’s Nazi-like Arab nationalism that had also led to his earlier purging from Iraq of Iraqis of ‘Iranian origin’.

As the tide was turning in 1982 (Iranians eventually encroached on Iraq) Fisk appears to have become a guest of the Iranians at the fronts whereas he had initially been welcomed by the Iraqis in the other side’s ‘trenches’. He also discusses gassing of Iranians and the Kurds of Halabja which he followed up with Kurds in 1991 in the north of Iraq (which became virtually independent after the war to liberate Kuwait from Saddam) and in Baghdad in 2004. He also notes the apparent complicity of the West in whatever Saddam sought to do in order to defend his regime from the Iranians.

1984 to 2003 in the Iran/Iraq War (continued)

Chapter Seven begins with interviews in Baghdad in 2003 concerning an Iraqi air force firing in 1987 on the USS Stark which may have led to the US ending its support. His vantage points during the middle phase of the war evidently included at various times Beirut, Tehran, Baghdad, the front lines of both sides in both countries north and south, an NBC-hired helicopter, Iranian helicopters and the HMS Broadsword. Fisk also notes the 1987 press conference at which Rafsanjani discussed Iran Contra and discusses his own knowledge of the characters involved. He also discusses the sea war including the international war, Iraqi atrocities in Kurdistan and against Iranians, both civilians and soldiers, and the advance of the Iranians on Basra in which he participated.

1988 to c. 2003 in the Iran/Iraq War (part III)

Chapter Eight begins with Fisk’s eyewitness account of the aftermath of the US shooting-down of an Iranian civilian commercial Airbus flight in 1988. He then notes that the reluctant acceptance of the peace by the dying Khomeini (who was nevertheless still able to settle thousands of internal scores in the immediate aftermath) soon followed. Fisk suggests that the Lockerbie bombing may yet prove to be Iranian revenge for the US Navy shooting-down of the Iranian airliner. The remainder of the chapter concerns Fisk’s visits to war graves and memorials and interviews with old soldiers and relatives of victims of the war. He examines the attitude to death especially of the Iranians and notes that there are exceptions to the apparent arch welcoming of death expressed by many Iranians. This chapter examines the aftermath of war in both Iran and Iraq (and to an extent in the rest of the world, too).

1914 to 2005 in the First World War and its Aftermath

Chapter Nine explores ancient ‘Crusading’ linkages between the French town of Douai known to Fisk’s father (as one of its WWI liberators) and a Douaihy family in Lebanon. Perhaps more to the point, he argues that the arbitrary drawing of borders after that war and other effects of the war continue today to ruin the lives of many in the Middle East and elsewhere.

1919 to 2005 in Ottoman Turkey, Nazi Germany and Modern-Day Turkey

Chapter Ten explores one of the alleged results of the First World War: the so-called “Armenian Genocide”. He also explains the handing-over of the piece of the Armenia promised by the post-First World War Treaty of Sevres by France to Turkey in 1939 and discusses a smaller and roughly contemporaneous Iraqi genocide of Assyrians (arguably while Iraq was under British control in the 1930s). Incidentally, he notes that the perpetrators of much of the violence of both of these genocides were Kurds, now being (as they have also been for some time) subjected to their own repressions by Turkey, Iran and Iraq. He also regards the Armenian genocide, witnessed by many Germans and other Europeans, as a kind of prototype of the Jewish Holocaust and remarks that at least Germany had got over denial of the crimes of its 'patriots'. The chapter records work done by Fisk in Beirut, Syria, England and elsewhere in the Middle East and beyond finding bodies, reviewing records and interviewing survivors and scholars.

1897 to 1993 in Israel/Palestine

Chapter Eleven concerns Palestine viewed firstly from Fisk’s stationing in Beirut and then from his work around the world. It begins with a short essay on the life of the former Grand Mufti of Jerusalem al-Haj Mohamed Amin al-Husseini and ends with a discussion of Fisk's reservations with regard to the 1993 Oslo Peace Accord.

c. 1993 to c. 2000 in Israel/Palestine (continued)

Chapter Twelve continues the story roughly from Oslo and the end of the first intifada until the finally attempt at final status talks with Clinton and Sharon’s visit to the Temple Mount and the second intifada it provoked leading to the effective abandonment of Oslo. It focuses on the idea of the inherent injustice brought about by the Israeli ‘settlement’ communities and the dis-connect between reality and Western media reporting/public government attitudes.