In the early 1910s, two men single-handedly decided the border of all the middle eastern countries. These men were named Mark Sykes (British) and Francois Georges-Picot (French). They both negotiated and came up with the border of the modern-day middle eastern countries like Turkey and Syria. While they intended for their borders to mostly include only one group within them, their vision had not been correct and the borders they constructed ended up causing havoc in the region. To this day there is rampant brutality in the way these countries are ruled, and differences are not allowed (Osman). There are many views of what to do in the region now and they range on both extremes, leaders don’t want their country to lose any part of their land, and groups like ISIS want the borders gone altogether (Danforth).
          The brutality in the region is an unseen side effect of these men’s decisions. The biggest source of contention in the region arises from the Kurdish people. These people are one of the world’s largest non-state nations (Hiltermann). They have been fighting for their independence ever since the borders had been drawn, but things like Iran deploying forces to prevent them from leaving countries like Iraq has led this to become a major issue and the Kurds do not have much help. Instead, groups like ISIS are trying to get rid of all countries, tainting the image of what the Kurds are trying to do and leaders can use this to express how the Kurds’ mission is bad.
          This decision to change the borders has strongly influenced what Persepolis is about, the brutality of the Middle East Region. This can be directly linked to how those two men thought the region should be split and how their flawed views of the region allowed the whole history to become what it has today. The good news is that there will eventually be change but it won’t come from the world forcing the region to become what it wants. The region needs to go through its struggles so that when the tension is completed, the whole region will be less divided.
                                                                                                                                                                 Works Cited

Danforth, Nick. “The Middle East That Might Have Been.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 9 Dec. 2015, www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/02/the-middle-east-that-might-have-been/385410/.

Hiltermann, Joost. “The Middle East in Chaos: Of Orders and Borders.” Crisis Group, International Crisis Group, 25 May 2018, www.crisisgroup.org/middle-east-north-africa/middle-east-chaos-orders-and-borders.

Osman, Tarek. “Why Border Lines Drawn with a Ruler in WW1 Still Rock the Middle East.” BBC News, BBC, 14 Dec. 2013, www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-25299553.

In 1980, Iran and Iraq became locked in a long and intense war after increased tension between the two nations resulting from the Islamic Revolution. Iran had begun a series of attacks along Iraq’s border, including a particularly strong attack on September 4, 1980 (Murauskaite 1). In response to Iran’s spike in aggression, Iraq began an invasion on September 22, 1980, that is internationally considered to be the start of open warfare (Murauskaite 1). The underlying causes and goals of each nation during this war, however, are more complex than they may appear.

Initially, Iraq was supportive of Iran’s new government following the revolution. This support would not last for long, as Iranian officials began to call for similar revolutions to take place in neighboring countries, including Iraq. This caused a sense of unease and anger within Iraq’s leadership, who wanted to prevent a revolution against Saddam Hussain (Donovan et. al 12). When Iraq invaded on September 22, Hussain publicly maintained that the purpose of the war was to regain 300 square kilometers of land that was surrendered to Iran as part of a 1975 treaty (Murauskaite 1), however, it is likely that Iraq was also focused on suppressing any possibility of a revolution.

Iraq quickly succeeded in capturing the land they had previously surrendered and repeatedly offered cease fire agreements to Iran, who denied them. Iran retaliated, reclaiming almost all of the lost land by 1982 (Murauskaite 1). Iran, however, was still not interested in ending the war and pushed further into Iraqi territory. The governmental situation in Iran at this time was complicated, with both the Iranian Army and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in existence as a result of the Islamic Revolution. The Iranian government likely viewed the war as “not simply…an opportunity to export the revolution, but rather a chance to deflect the threat from the army, expand the IRGC, and undermine their internal rivals” (Tabaar 5).

It would not be until 1988 that Iran accepted a cease fire agreement created by the United Nations calling on both countries to return to their original borders (Tabaar 23). It is estimated that one million lives were lost during the conflict, however, both nations have refused to agree on an exact number (Murauskaite 1). As we will see in Persepolis, this war directly impacted the citizens of Iran during a time that was already filled with change.

Works Cited

Donovan, Jerome Denis, et al. “Strategic Interaction and the Iran-Iraq War: Lessons to Learn for Future Engagement?” DOMES: Digest of Middle East Studies, vol. 24, no. 2, Sept. 2015, pp. 327–346. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1111/dome.12070.

Murauskaite, Egle. “Saddam’s Use of Violence against Civilians during the Iran-Iraq War.” Middle East Journal, vol. 70, no. 1, 2016, pp. 47–68., www.jstor.org/stable/43698619.

Tabaar, Mohammad Ayatollahi. “Factional Politics in the Iran-Iraq War.” Journal of Strategic Studies, vol. 42, no. 3/4, June 2019, pp. 480–506. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1080/01402390.2017.1347873.