The Achilles Trap: Saddam Hussein, the C.I.A., and the Origins of America's Invasion of Iraq

by Steve Coll

The decision to provide arms to Khomeini had originated around 1984, when some of Reagan’s National Security Council aides began to think that the U.S. could not afford to be entirely estranged from Iran, a key ally prior to Khomeini’s revolution. In late 1984, two years into the C.I.A.’s secret intelligence-sharing relationship with Saddam, an interagency review concluded that the Reagan administration had “no influential contacts” in Iran whatsoever. The review’s authors worried this might create an opening for Soviet influence. This was arguably an irrational anxiety, but it was typical of the Cold War’s zero-sum calculations. Moreover, during 1984 and 1985, Iranian allies in Lebanon had kidnapped C.I.A. station chief William Buckley, Presbyterian minister Benjamin Weir, and Associated Press correspondent Terry Anderson, among others; the White House had no credible channel to negotiate with Tehran to pursue their release. Israel, meanwhile, for its own reasons, supplied arms to Iran and maintained contacts in Tehran. Iran was hostile to some of Israel’s Arab enemies, including Iraq. Iran also had a sizable Jewish population that Israel sought to protect.