@Kumaoni ,
@MikeTheInfantryman
Talking about iraq ?
Let's start, Iraqi army in September, October of 1980 when it invaded iran was small and had mostly Soviet equipment, then there was a republican guard which during the course of iran iraq war went on to become full fledged divisions with best tanks ( asad babils ) , best equipment etc .
Some divisons were named as medina munawwara , Baghdad , nebuchadnazzer , Hammurabbi .
Initially they were designated to defend areas Baghdad and prevent coup but when iran started to regain its areas in Kurdistan by supporting barzani bro's and in centre axis and finally in south fighting on majnoon island and shatt al Arab.
The Iraqi army begin to crack after repeated defeats in qasr e Shirin ، eslam e Abad and their goal of reaching ahvaz the capital khuzestan was unfinished hell Baghdad at one point seemed was within reach of pasadaran or basij .in Mehran mandali axis on centre , hell at one point iran reached and cut of road between Basra and Baghdad during one of their 12 or ,13 operations called as karbala like karbala 1 karbala 3 and so on.
Then what happened ? As soon as iranis crossed at salmanchech in south near Basra , or when they crossed and captured sulaymaniyah in north , they were met by a wall , literally go see the desert South of Basra on Google Earth , you will understand the impact of trench warfare .
Massive , walls of defense with interlocking fields of fire
Hence as iranis had held on to abadan the iraqis held on to Basra using tabun gas liberally .
Also , Iraqi army was blostered by a peoples army .
They were not republican guard nor the regualr army , they were conscripts and levies who provided meat shields .
This was a mass of humanity not a army , Iranians wiped the floor with Iraqi airforce with their tomcats and phenonixes , hell one pilot killed three mig 21s with one pheonnix missile due the massive damage the warhead could inflict ( it was made to enage a bomber ).
All in all Iraqi army had mirages ,yes indeed with exocets for naval strikes and they gained whatever they lost to iranis in Kurdistan and and south during ala al Tawakalna operation.too .
But that was the end , gulf war was just 2 years after iran iraq war ended.
The fact that Iraqi army suffered due to western weapons iranis had early in war didn't make them realise taht now they would those guys who actually made those weapons like tomcats and phenonixes etc .
They destroyed them from afar , iranis suffered after their stocks of western jets and weapons dwindled and they had to literally buy Chinese maal to fight.