The Iran-Iraq War Continues Beyond 1988

On 25 June, Iraq launched the second Tawakal ala Allah operation against the Iranians on Majnoon Island. Iraqi commandos used amphibious craft to block the Iranian rear,[52] then used hundreds of tanks with heavy conventional and chemical artillery barrages to recapture the island after 8 hours of combat.[93][137] Saddam appeared live on Iraqi television to "lead" the charge against the Iranians.[137] The majority of the Iranian defenders were killed during the quick assault.[93] The final two Tawakal ala Allah operations took place near al-Amarah and Khaneqan.[93] By 12 July, the Iraqis had captured the city of Dehloran, 30 km (19 mi) inside Iran, along with 2,500 troops and much armour and material, which took four days to transport to Iraq. These losses included more than 570 of the 1,000 remaining Iranian tanks, over 430 armored vehicles, 45 self-propelled artillery, 300 towed artillery pierces, and 320 antiaircraft guns. These figures only included what Iraq could actually put to use; total amount of captured materiel was higher. Since March, the Iraqis claimed to captured 1,298 tanks, 155 infantry fighting vehicles, 512 heavy artillery pieces, 6,196 mortars, 5,550 recoilless rifles and light guns, 8,050 man-portable rocket launchers, 60,694 rifles, 322 pistols, 454 trucks, and 1,600 light vehicles.[137] The Iraqis withdrew from Dehloran soon after, claiming that they had "no desire to conquer Iranian territory."[52] Historian Kaveh Farrokh considered this to be Iran's greatest military disaster during the war. Pelletier notes that "Tawakal ala Allah … resulted in the absolute destruction of Iran’s military machine."[52]

During the 1988 battles, the Iranians put up little resistance to the Iraqi offensives, having been worn out by nearly eight years of war.[53]:253 They lost large amounts of equipment; however, they managed to rescue most of their troops from being captured by the Iraqis, leaving Iraq with relatively few prisoners.[52] On 2 July, Iran belatedly set up a joint central command which unified the Revolutionary Guard, Army, and Kurdish rebels, and dispelled the rivalry between the Army and the Revolutionary Guard. However, this came too late, and due to the capture of 570 of their operable tanks and the destruction of hundreds more, Iran was believed to have fewer than 200 remaining operable tanks on the southern front, faced against thousands of Iraqi ones.[137] The only area where the Iranians were not suffering major defeats was in Kurdistan.[108]

Saddam sent a warning to Khomeini in mid-1988, threatening to launch a full-scale invasion and attack Iranian cities with weapons of mass destruction. Shortly afterwards, Iraqi aircraft bombed the Iranian town of Oshnavieh with poison gas, immediately killing and wounding over 2,000 civilians. The fear of an all out chemical attack against Iran's largely unprotected civilian population weighed heavily on the Iranian leadership, and they realized that the international community had no intention of restraining Iraq.[144] The lives of the civilian population of Iran were becoming very disrupted, with a third of the urban population evacuating major cities in fear of the seemingly imminent chemical war. Meanwhile, Iraqi conventional bombs and missiles continuously hit towns and cities, as well as destroyed vital civilian and military infrastructure, and the death toll increased. Iran did reply with missile and air attacks as well, but not enough to deter the Iraqis from attacking.[137]

Under the threat of a new and even more powerful invasion, Commander-in-Chief Rafsanjani ordered the Iranians to retreat from Haj Omran, Kurdistan on 14 July.[137][145] The Iranians did not publicly describe this as a retreat, instead calling it a "temporary withdrawal".[145] By July, Iran's army inside Iraq (except Kurdistan) had largely disintegrated.[52] Iraq put up a massive display of captured Iranian weapons in Baghdad, claiming they "captured" 1,298 tanks, 5,550 recoil-less rifles, and thousands of other weapons.[137] However, Iraq had taken heavy losses as well, and the battles were very costly.[93]