THE IRAN-IRAQ BOUNDARY: GEOGRAPHICAL CONSIDERATIONS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP08C01297R000600010019-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: C
• Document Page Count: 10
• Document Creation Date: December 27, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 11, 2012
• Sequence Number: 19
• Publication Date: October 11, 1986
• Content Type: REPORT

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Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/01/25: CIA-RDP08C01297R000600010019-7
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4TES 0 (U) THE IRAN-IRAQ BOUNDARY:
GEOGRAPHICAL CONSIDERATIONS
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Summary
(U) Geographically, the Iran-Iraq frontier can
be divided into three segments: Khuzestan/Lower
Mesopotamia; the Central Plains and Foothills; and
Kordestan/Kurdistan. The Khuzestan/Lower Mesopotamia
segment has assumed the greatest importance owing to
the Iraqi attack on the important petroleum centers of
\1?Khggramsliah(and Abadan. It is also the one segment
where an Iraqi territorial claim--control over the
Shatt al Arab estuary--has been clearly enunciated.
(U) The Central Plains and Foothills region,
however, was the center of conflict in 1974 and
again prior to the Iraqi invasion of September 1980.
It is quite probable that both sides in the conflict
will claim that the Algiers Agreement of 1975, which
ostensibly delimited the 906-mile Iran-Iraq boundary,
was abrogated by the initiation of military activity
along this part of the frontier.
(C) Although the Iran-Iraq frontier has been
the subject of dispute for years, the raison d'etre
underlying the present conflict has more to do with
determining the eventual leadership in the Persian
(Arabian) Gulf region. The 1975 Algiers Agreement,
respected by both parties until the fall of the Shah of
Iran,was as concise a delimitation of the respective
states as any international boundary agreement of
recent years. Iran's gain, through the use of the
thalweg (the main channel) of the Shatt al Arab
estuary to determine state sovereignty, was and is
in keeping with methodology commonly accepted in
international law- Should Iran lose the right to
navigate freely in the Shatt al Arab, it would be
only a matter of time until conflict again occurred.
CONFID
GDS 10/11/86 (Alexander, L.)
Report 4-AR
October 11, 1980
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/01/25: CIA-RDP08C01297R000600010019-7
Declassified in Part- Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/01/25: CIA-RDP08C01297R0006000100-19-7
CONFIDENTIAL
(C) In the long run, Iraq could perhaps force Iran to
relinquish some territory in the Central Plains and Foothills
(which perhaps could serve as a bargaining element in a cease-
fire); however, this would be an unlikely denouement to a
dangerous conflict that pits Persian against Arab and Shia
against Sunni in a region where religious and ethnic hatreds
are centuries old.
CONFIDENTIAL
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/01/25: CIA-RDP08C01297R000600010019-7
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/01/25: CIA-RDP08C01297R000600010019-7
CONFIDENTIAL
(U) For practical as well as historical purposes, the
existing frontier between Iran and Iraq can be divided into
three segments (see Map A, over):
--Khuzestan/Lower Mesopotamia;
--the Central Plains and Foothills;
--Kordestan/Kurdistan.
(U) Current US interest is focused on the Iraqi incursion
into Iranian Khuzestan, commonly known as "the cradle of the
Iranian oil industry." Somewhat less known is that while
Khuzestan comprises only 9 percent of Iran's land mass, it
possesses 37 percent of that country's surface water flow.
This factor has led Iran to choose the region as a center of
agricultural production. Thus Khuzestan's importance to Iran
is twofold.
? (U) In 1974, however, the military activity along the Iran-
Iraq frontier--which led to a UN Security Council investigation
and thereby to the Algiers boundary agreement of 1975--
centered in the Central Plains and Foothills region. .Again, in
1980 the military disturbances prior to the Iraqi invasion in
September took place, for the most part, in the central region.
(U) Control of the Shatt al Arab, located in the Khuzestan/
Lower Mesopotamia region, is now the single most important
aspect of the dispute, but the justification for the abrogation
of the Algiers Agreement will be based on activities that took
place in the central, not the southern, boundary region.
(U) Khuzestan/Lower Mesopotamia
Geopolitically, the outstanding feature in the long history
of Iraq-Iran boundary disputes has been the Shatt al Arab
estuary. Formed by the confluence of the Tigris and the Euphrates,
it drains Iraq's Lower Mesopotamia region. The Shatt al Arab
also forms, in its last 55 miles, the Iraqi boundary with the
Iranian province of Khuzestan. Khuzestan is often referred
to by Arabs and geographers alike as "Arabistan." The term
? itself, however, is not of recent creation. This generic
CONFIDENTIAL
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/01/25: CIA-RDP08C01297R000600010019-7
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/01/25: CIA-RDP08C01297R000600010019-7
CONFIDENTIAL
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Map A
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