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| 1979, March 27 |
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| The Arab League expelled Egypt and transferred its headquarters from Cairo to Tunis. | 1 |
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| 1980–87 |
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| Sharp drop in oil prices from the range of $30 to $35 per barrel of crude oil to $16 to $18. | 2 |
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| 1980, Sept. 22 |
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| Start of the IRAN-IRAQ WAR, which lasted for nearly eight years. Iraq invaded Iran primarily to secure territorial claims related to the Shatt al-Arab, the waterway to the Persian Gulf. Other Iraqi motives were the desire for greater prestige and the ambition to become the leading state in the Arab world. Iraq also hoped to topple the revolutionary regime in Iran, fearing that Tehran would incite Shi’ites in southern Iraq to rebellion. | 3 |
| The scale of the war, the costliest and most murderous since World War II, was enormous: 1 million casualties (60 percent of them Iranian), $200 billion in direct costs, and another $1 trillion in indirect costs. Each side conscripted between 1.3 and 1.6 million men, a figure equivalent to more than half the males of military age in Iraq and about one-sixth of them in Iran. | 4 |
| Iraq held the advantage for the first two years and penetrated far into southwestern Iran, even capturing the city of Khuramshahr. But drawing on their superior numbers, Iranians assumed the offensive after 1982 and over the next four years pushed the war back to Iraqi soil. Early in 1988 a series of successful Iraqi counteroffensives, in which chemical weapons were used extensively, compelled the Iranians to accept a UN cease-fire (July 20, 1988). The war ended in an exhausting, bloody draw and significantly impoverished both nations. | 5 |
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| 1982, June 6 |
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| ISRAELI INVASION OF LEBANON. The Israelis had grown weary of constant Palestinian raids from southern Lebanon and worried about the presence (since 1981) of Syrian missiles on Lebanese soil. The purpose of the invasion was to expel the Syrians and permanently eliminate the PLO's bases inside Lebanon. Israeli forces advanced as far north as Beirut. The Syrians chose to avoid contact with the Israelis after suffering heavy losses in air battles over Beirut. To the satisfaction of the Israelis, the PLO evacuated the country in August. Yet in the succeeding months, Israel was unable to organize a stable Lebanese government to maintain order. Unwilling to stay permanently, the Israeli army withdrew in stages between July 1983 and June 1985, and kept only a security zone in southern Lebanon. As the Israelis fell back, the Syrians resumed their former position of paramountcy in Lebanon. | 6 |
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| 1983, Oct. 23 |
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| A suicide attack blew up U.S.-French headquarters in Beirut, killing 241 U.S. Marines and 58 French soldiers. The bombing was in retaliation for U.S. naval shelling of areas outside Beirut in Sept. 1983. The U.S. withdrew from Lebanon in Feb. 1984. | 7 |
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| Dec |
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| Syrian forces and PLO rebels expelled Yasir Arafat and other Palestinian officials of al-Fatah from northern Lebanon. PLO headquarters was transferred to Tunis. | 8 |
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