Saddam Hussein visited Iran in 1976

In the mid-1970s the Shah’s Iran, along with Israel and the United States, oversaw a covert war against Iraq by supporting the Kurdish revolt there. Documents declassified from that time show that the Shah wanted to use the Kurds in order to keep the Iraqi Army bogged down inside its borders, an interest he shared with Israel which also feared the Ba’athist Iraq becoming a regional military power.