1975 Arvandrud Skirmish

Iraqi Troops at the Front
Arvandrud Border Skirmish
Date	July 4th, 1975 - July 8th, 1975
Place	Southern Iraq
Result	Parthia annexes the Arvandrud
Combatants Parthia Iraq Commanders Shah Ardeshir XI Ahmed Hassan Al-Bakr Strength 250,000 100,000 Casualties 1,500 dead 7,000 wounded 32,000 dead 55,000 wounded)

The 1975 Arvandrud Skirmish, fought over the thin waterway of the Arvandrud on the border of Parthia and Iraq (known in Arabic as the Shaat-al Arab), was the first true utilization of the Parthian military in combat, and is largely considered to be a forerunner to the much larger Parthian-Iraqi War several years later. While it was a bloody conflict, in comparison to the much more protracted and brutal war years later, it is somewhat more forgettable, yet it's results are the direct antecedents of the events leading up to the full annexation of Iraq by Parthia.

Background

Iraq and Parthia had never enjoyed particularly close relations, and in 1963, with the coming to power of the Baa'th Party in Iraq, Shah Ardeshir began to support Anti-Baath Kurdish insurgents operating in the north of the country with a combination of US-made ATGMs and portable SAMs. The Iraqi government, unable to prove the Parthian government was supplying Kurdish soldiers, retaliated by inciting Khuzestani Arabs in Parthia to revolt and supplying them with Soviet-made weapons. The Parthians, when this was discovered, threatened to invade Iraq, leading to a brief peace agreement in 1973, which promised neither side would supply insurgents in the other country. While Kurdish rebels continued to fight in Iraq with support of Parthian NGOs, Parthian military might crushed the Arab revolt, further curtailing their freedoms. This caused the Iraqi president at the time, Ahmed Hassan Al-Bakr, to lose much respect in Iraq, forcing him to try and appear as an Arab nationalist to avoid deposition. For his plan, he decided to levy a claim to the entire Arvandrud, which, at that time, was necessary for Iraqi oil shipments.

Parthia Mobilizes

Shah Ardeshir was quick to retaliate, claiming that not only would he contest the Iraqi claim with military force, but that he would make the Iraqis pay for their insolence. At this time, the Parthian military, even though an all-volunteer force, was larger than the Iraqi army, and also, less well known, far better equipped with much more modern equipment. The Iraqi force was caught unprepared as Parthian troops poured over the Arvandrud in hovercrafts, unloading Shir II MBTs which led massed armored breakthroughs of the mostly infantry based Iraqi army, while the Shah's Marder IFVs permitted Parthian infantry mobility the Iraqis could only dream of. In the first four hours, the two Iraqi divisions protecting the Arvandrud were driven back, while whole units were cut off, surrounded, and destroyed.

Iraqi Response

The initial Parthian response had driven across the south of the country, managing to cut the port of Umm Qasr off from the rest of the country, putting it under seige, while the Parthian forces came within sight of Basrah to the north, putting it under airstrikes and artillery barrages. At Umm Qasr, Parthian air attacks sank all of Iraq's oil tankers in a daylight raid </div>as Iraqi pilots were ordered not to risk their planes by getting off the ground. Iraq stood on the verge of being cut off from oil export, and launched a massive counterattack, pulling together the entire regular army, along with militias of civilians given little more than AK-47s, and throwing them en masse at the Parthian army, which cut down the human wave attacks with ease, continuing to unleash bombardments of Umm Qasr and Basrah. Iraq's situation had become utterly desperate, as for three days Parthian forces threatened to seize the oil exportation center of the country.

International Response and Conclusion

While Israel and the United States both were supportive of the Shah, the Soviet Union interceded on Iraq's behalf, demanding a peaceful solution to the dispute be found, or else the Soviet Union would declare war on Parthia. Desperate to avoid a nuclear war, the Shah demanded the Arvandrud in its entirety in all places where it was divided in half between Iraq and Parthia before, which he was granted. This cut Iraqi shipping off from the Persian gulf except out of Umm Qasr, while granting exclusive use of the Arvandrud to Parthia. In the end, the defeat in the border skirmish broke Al-Bakr's authority, forcing him to resign, granting power to Saddam Hussein. Iraq, reeling from the ease in which Parthia overwhelmed the army, decided to pursue a policy of all out militarization, dramatically increasing the size of the armed forces and purchasing vast numbers of weapons from the Soviet Union. Parthia, feeling that it needed to protect itself from the great powers, decided to make a full attempt to produce a nuclear bomb and a relatively impressive chemical arsenal within 4 years, and also, continued to purchase American and NATO military goods for any future showdown with Iraq.