¹ The propaganda front also saw interesting developments. Three days after the incident on September 21, 1987, in which U.S. forces captured an Iranian vessel suspected of laying mines in international waters, President Reagan notified the U.S. Congress that the Iran-Ajr was “an Iranian landing craft engag[ed] in nighttime minelaying … manned by regular elements of the Iranian navy” (p. 173). In sharp contrast, Iran’s Minister for Foreign Affairs characterized the Iran-Ajr as merely a commercial “cargo vessel … carrying materials and victuals” (p. 45). Although propaganda has always played a key role in international relations, instant cable news—the “CNN factor”—is making it more and more difficult for governments to “spin” the facts to suit their theories or interests. It was hard to argue, for example, with CNN pictures of the vessel with mines ready for laying and its naval crew in custody.

² See, e.g., The Iran-Iraq War: The Politics of Aggression (F. Rajaee ed., 1993); D. Hiro, The Longest War: The Iran-Iraq Military Conflict (1991); The Persian Gulf War: Lessons for Strategy, Law, and Diplomacy (Christopher C. Joyner ed., 1990); The Iran-Iraq War: Impact and Implications (Efraim Karsh ed., 1989); Shahram Chubin & Charles Tripp, Iran and Iraq at War (1988); Majid Khadduri, The Gulf War: The Origins and Implications of the Iraq-Iran Conflict (1988).