I worked with an Iraqi and an Iranian recently. They had both fought in the Iran/Iraq war, and thought they might have even been on opposite sides of the same battle at one stage. They got on very well as colleges, and when I asked one of them about the war he had fought in, he laughed and said that no-one he knew was under any illusions about it. They did their level best not to get killed, and went out of their way not to kill anyone on the other side as well, if they could help it. He was on the Iranian side, and the only person in his unit who wanted to be at war was the unit's mullah, who they all hated and despised. Sounded like the strangest war ever the way he described it.