On September 22, 1980, the Iraqi military under the command of Saddam Hussein, unprovoked, supported and heavily armed by the Western and Arab worlds, invaded an economically devastated and militarily weakened Iran following the events of the Islamic Revolution of 1979. Through a brutal campaign of violence, terror, and the illicit use of chemical weapons against civilian populations, the Ba'athist dictator sought to quickly conquer his oil-rich neighbor in order to fulfill his nationalist fantasy of becoming the region’s dominant power. Despite facing crippling economic sanctions, a substantial lack of proper military equipment and training, and the world's major powers collaborating against them, the Iranian people retaliated and held their ground throughout one of the bloodiest conflicts in modern history and prevented Hussein from taking even one inch of their land. This album is dedicated to the myriad Iranian soldiers (many of whom were young volunteers) and civilians who lost their lives as a result of the eight-year Iran-Iraq war, as well as the countless Kurdish victims of the Al-Anfal genocide. May they rest in peace and remain forever free from the failures of mankind.