In 1972, Iraq had signed an aid agreement with the Soviet Union which helped Iraq play a lead role in foreign affairs in the Middle East. But with the crackdown on Iraqi communists and a shift in commercial trading with the western world put a strain on that agreement, but that only lasted till the Persian Gulf War in 1991.

France had started to change during the 1970's to have more of a pro-Arab policy and started to have closer ties with Saddam after the oil crisis in 1973. In 1976 there was a meeting between the French leader and Iraq leader to discuss business and ruling political circles. Shortly after that Saddam negotiated and accord with their neighboring country Iran that contained Iraqi concessions on border items. In return Iran promised to stop supporting the Kurds in Iraq.

Iraq has had to deal with the separatists Kurds since it became and independent country in 1920, which has always been a problem causing unnecessary bloodshed. Saddam did create an agreement in 1970 with the Kurd leaders but it kind of fell apart later on. The result was some brutal fighting between the northern Kurds and the Iraqi government. It became so bad that even some Kurd villages in Iran got bombed which did not help the Iraq-Iran relationship. Then in 1979 Saddam signed a treaty with Iran making the Shah support for the Kurds withdraw and suffer a total defeat.