Washington (UPI) Feb 13, 2009 – The now nearly forgotten Iran-Iraq war teaches important lessons about the nature of 21st century war. The first is that wars don’t have to be won by “perfect” armies operating with state-of-the-art military weapons. Weapons systems and troops trained to higher standards than those of their enemies are what is really required to do the job. The U.S. armed forces, the most highly trained and best equipped in the world, swept aside the Iraqi army with minimum casualties in the 1991 and 2003 Gulf Wars.