In the middle of the 1980s, the biggest armed conflict in the world was the war between Iran and Iraq. Olof Palme himself was a mediator in the war between 1980 and 1982, which turned out to be an impossible assignment, and the war continued all the way until 1988. Another strategically important conflict was the one between Nicaragua’s socialist government and the Contra guerillas supported by the United States. A third was the war in southern Africa, where the most significant fighting was between the apartheid regime and the black resistance movements headed by the ANC.
