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"He who cannot control himself, cannot control others."

Saddam Hussein rose from a village near Tikrit to absolute power in Iraq through assassination, torture, and ruthless political cunning. He joined the Baath Party as a teenager, participated in a failed assassination attempt against Prime Minister Qasim, and fled to Cairo. He returned after a Baath coup, became the regime's chief enforcer, and seized the presidency in 1979 in a coup within the coup — forcing his party colleagues to denounce each other at gunpoint before having 22 of them taken out and shot. His decision to invade Iran in 1980 was his greatest strategic blunder: he expected a quick victory over revolutionary chaos and got eight years of grinding war. He used chemical weapons against Iranian soldiers and Kurdish civilians, killing thousands. Driven by fear of Iranian-inspired Shia revolution and subsidized by Gulf Arab states, he survived the war deeply in debt — which led directly to the 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

"America cannot do a damn thing."

Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini was one of the 20th century's most consequential revolutionaries — a Shia cleric who overthrew a US-backed monarchy and transformed Iran into an Islamic theocracy. When Saddam invaded Iran in 1980, Khomeini transformed the war from a territorial conflict into a religious crusade, urging Iranian youth to achieve martyrdom. His insistence on continuing the war after Iran had driven Iraq from its territory — demanding Saddam's removal as a condition of peace — cost Iran hundreds of thousands of additional lives for nothing. He accepted the UN ceasefire in 1988 in a radio address he described as 'more deadly than drinking poison.' He died nine months later. His legacy — the Islamic Republic, Hezbollah, Hamas funding, the nuclear program — continues to shape the Middle East.

"We do not negotiate with the United States."

Ali Khamenei served as President of Iran for the entirety of the Iran-Iraq War — from 1981 to 1989 — before becoming Supreme Leader after Khomeini's death, a position he has held for over 35 years. A disciple of Khomeini and one of the founders of the Islamic Republic, Khamenei was the political face of the war effort while Khomeini was its spiritual authority. He survived an assassination attempt in 1981 that left his right hand permanently paralyzed. During the war, he helped mobilize the Basij militia — waves of volunteers, sometimes including young teenagers, who cleared minefields for the regular army. He supported continuing the war well past the point at which Iran had recovered its territory. His experience of the Iran-Iraq War — the isolation, the chemical weapons attacks, the American tilt toward Iraq — shaped his deep distrust of the West and his conviction that Iran must develop self-sufficient military capabilities including nuclear technology.

"The bullet that kills me is not worth the footprint of a martyr."

Mostafa Chamran was one of the most remarkable figures of the Iranian Revolution — an American-trained physicist who chose revolution over science. After earning his PhD from UC Berkeley in plasma physics and working at Bell Labs, he traveled to Egypt, then Lebanon, where he trained Palestinian guerrillas under Yasser Arafat. He returned to Iran for the revolution and became one of the founders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, helping transform it from a political militia into a military force. When Iraq invaded Khuzestan in 1980, Chamran was Iran's Defense Minister and went personally to the front to direct resistance operations. He organized the guerrilla defense of Khorramshahr and was instrumental in slowing Iraq's advance until the IRGC could be properly mobilized. He was killed in action at Dehlaviyeh in June 1981 — becoming the most senior Iranian official killed in the war. He is revered in Iran as a martyr-hero.

"Iraq is not a weak or small country. We are a great people."

Tariq Aziz was the urbane face of Saddam Hussein's regime — a Christian Arab, intellectually polished, in rimless glasses, who could meet Western foreign ministers and make the case for Iraq's position with the fluency that Saddam could not. Born Mikhail Yuhanna in a Christian family in Mosul, he changed his name and joined the Baath Party, becoming its chief propagandist before rising to Deputy Prime Minister. During the Iran-Iraq War, he was indispensable: he secured Gulf Arab financial support, Western arms sales and intelligence sharing, and managed the regime's diplomatic relationships while Saddam directed the military. He was personally the target of an assassination attempt by the Dawa Party in 1980 — grenade thrown at him as he spoke at Mustansiriya University; he survived, and Saddam used the attack as partial justification for the war. He surrendered to US forces in 2003 and died in Iraqi prison in 2015.