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It was the last day of our summer school holidays and I had gone to the Tehran International Fair with a friend. We had spent the morning going from one pavilion to another, looking at everything from tractors to household electronics, to some of the latest cars on display. Tehran’s fair is rather unique in that sense as it brings a collage of participating presenters, showing everything from heavy machinery to everyday home products. The 1980 fair was one of the worst ever, as the hostage crisis had made many foreign companies stay away.

Early in the afternoon we started heading towards home, but as we got close to the exit gates, there was a convoy of various military vehicles rushing in and dispersing all over the fairgrounds. At first we were baffled but soon enough people around us started murmuring something about “Iraq has attacked”. By the time we made it to the gates, there was a radio in the exit booth turned up loudly, announcing the military advance of Iraqi army in the southwest and western provinces of Iran. There was also a warning of possible air raids on Tehran, plus a few messages from various authorities. As we walked towards home we watched the soldiers set-up one anti-air cannon on one corner of the fairgrounds and further down watched another group set up on top of the building of former Hilton Hotel.

This was the beginning of the one of the bloodiest wars in the century of big wars. A war that has left some deep wounds even today. As millions lost their lives or were severely harmed, lost their homes and livelihood, were displaced and suffered great hardship and will forever carry the emotional scars of daily rocket attacks on civilian areas, sometimes peppered with weapons of mass destruction. When the world had learned that Saddam Hussein was busy bombing western Iran with his chemical arsenal, Mr. Rumsfeld flew in to Baghdad to meet with him, shake his hand and assure him of continued Reagan administration support. Towards the end of the war, when Saddam used the same weapons to murder thousands of Kurds in cities like Halabja, Collin Powell was the National Security Adviser to President and chose to not say a single word of protest or criticism. Yet he visits the same area today, not to remind the world of his government’s support of such awful actions, but to use it to justify yet another ugly war.

My thoughts tonight are with all those Iranians who made the ultimate sacrifice in defending their country, along with Iraqi casualties that fell into the trap of a sadistic murderer tyrant, supported by the evil-doers in other countries around the world. May all the responsible parties for atrocities during the unnecessary 8 year Iran-Iraq war be brought to justice one day.