In the spring of 1983, the United States launched Operation Staunch, a wide-ranging diplomatic effort to persuade other nations all over the world not to sell arms or spare parts for weapons to Iran. To all effects, Iran was still considered a hostile country in the 1980s. This arms embargo took place during the Iran-Iraq war (1980–1988), a war in which the US sided with Iraq. On the record. the US could not, and was not, selling any weapons or military equipment to Iran.