Arab nations let Saddam take Kuwait

Maybe not as far-fetched as it sounds.

Alan Munro's book "Arab Storm" is the background and his analysis is rather comprehensive.

Iraq was not in a good shape after the Iran war.

Kuwait had a long tradition of being a greedy lot and not adhering to any agreements. They were not particular well-liked by any of the other Arab nations.

The one nation really counting was Saudi, where one of the Saudi rulers said "Kuwait think there are three super powers, USSR. US and Kuwait". And it was not a joke.

A few quotes and edited pieces from Munro:
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"Kuwait opened diplomatic reltions with the eastern bloc at a time when their Gulf partners abstained from such contacts"

Kuwait was not a signatory to the GCC defence apct at the time of the invasion

In 1990 Kuwait produced above their oil quota in defiance of OPEC. This irritated Saudi immensely and made Saddam very angry.

Kuwait made a point of publicly recording the $12 bn Iraqi debt in their IMF statistics for 1990. THAT is public humiliation of the first order.

The Arab summit in Amman in February 1990 (ACC meeting), comprised Egypt, Jordan and Yemen.

Saddam realised thta he had to have Saudi on his side; hence his attention to King Fahd.

The Arab League summit in May 1990 was engineered to put Saddam as the leader of the Arab world and to give him a free hand in terms of Kuwait.

King Fahd tried to get the meeting postponed and tried to get Mubarak in on it as well.

King Fahd and Mubarak worked hard at the summit to ward off the mroe outrageous Iraqi things (Palestine, The West, the super gun, etc).

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In essence, Saddam managed to get everybody rather apprehensive of what he wanted to do and to divert the attention away from real grievances against Kuwait towards his designs on the other Arab nations.

In short: It did not do him any good. Saudi got more and more scared of it all. Saudi strated to fear Saddam might have an invasion of Saudi in the book as well. Or at least some of the other GCC nations.

What IF Saddam had kept the focus on Kuwait and elaborated on the Kuwait behaviour? And not threatened Saudi.

Could he have managed to get a blank cheque from the other nations in the region?

Could they have sanctioned his invasion? What could US do if Saudi had ok'd Saddam?

How would the world look like?

Ivan

ivanotter said:

Kuwait made a point of publicly recording the $12 bn Iraqi debt in their IMF statistics for 1990. THAT is public humiliation of the first order.

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A lot of history turns on these small, almost personal details. Which can be taken personally.

As an American, there are many good features of my country. But we have had some rotten foreign policy over the years. A basketball player from Serbia said, every country has rotten foreign policy. And there's a lot of truth to that. Maybe you have to look hard to find the exceptions.

We supported Saddam Hussein all through the 1980s. Well, that one may have some back to bite us in the butt.

And U.S. Ambassador April Glaspie's conversation with Saddam Hussein on July 25, 1990:

http://msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/glaspie.html <-- one professor's webpage

GLASPIE: I think I understand this. I have lived here for years. I admire your extraordinary efforts to rebuild your country. I know you need funds. We understand that and our opinion is that you should have the opportunity to rebuild your country. But we have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait [Emphasis added.]

I was in the American Embassy in Kuwait during the late 60's. The instruction we had during this period was that we should express no opinion on this issue and that the issue is not associated with America. James Baker has directed our official spokesmen to emphasize this instruction [Emphasis added]. We hope you can solve this problem using any suitable methods via Klibi or via President Mubarak. All that we hope is that these issues are solved quickly. With regard to all of this, can I ask you to see how the issue appears to us?

My assessment after 25 years' service in this area is that your objective must have strong backing from your Arab brothers. I now speak of oil But you, Mr. President, have fought through a horrific and painful war. Frankly, we can see only that you have deployed massive troops in the south. Normally that would not be any of our business. But when this happens in the context of what you said on your national day, then when we read the details in the two letters of the Foreign Minister, then when we see the Iraqi point of view that the measures taken by the U.A.E. and Kuwait is, in the final analysis, parallel to military aggression against Iraq, then it would be reasonable for me to be concerned. And for this reason, I received an instruction to ask you, in the spirit of friendship -- not in the spirit of confrontation -- regarding your intentions [Emphasis addded].

I simply describe the position of my Government. And I do not mean that the situation is a simple situation. But our concern is a simple one.

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This is kind of working both sides of the equation. It's not the one-dimensional thing it is sometimes presented as. So, it's not terrible. But not great either.

Why would Iraq think we wouldn't support them? We supported them all during their war against Iran.

During the Cold War, we supported a lot of rotten dictators, including with military aid. As long as they could play the verbal game of "we're fighting communism," that seemed to be enough. And the obvious question for today is whether the current verbal game is "we're fighting terrorism." It almost seems accidental when we end up opposing a dictator.

President Bush made strong public statements and very quickly put himself in a box. The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait was on August 2, 1990. Probably within one week, war was almost a foregone conclusion.

The only exception might have been if a third party could have swung a deal. For example, Bush sends a retired Senator to Iraq who's really just supposed to go through the motions of negotiation, and the Senator actually goes through with it and negotiates a deal. Or the Pope puts a deal together. And the deal looks like this: Iraq withdraws from Kuwait, releases all hostages, and pays damages. Kuwait agrees not to engage in any more slant drilling, and agrees not to take any more oil from this field which is mostly under Iraq say for a period of five years. Kuwait agrees to pay damages for previous slant drilling, but less than the damages Iraq pays because aggression cannot pay. So, maybe Iraq pays net damages of $25 million, which is not quite a pro forma amount, but compared to big national incomes and the cost of war, may be a face-saving way to prevent the war.

It's a long shot. Even for a popular Pope , or for the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church. Or for the Red Crescent in the Arab world.

. . . a long shot

Bad precedent, though...

If the Iraqi invasion and annexation is recognized, what stops the Saudis from doing the same to the UAE, Quatar, and/or Bahrain?

All of the Gulf states have/have fairly tenuous borders/history...

Best,

Remember, this is only the Arab nations that are okay with this, not the west.

I didn't realize border dispute meant annexaiton.

MattII said:

Remember, this is only the Arab nations that are okay with this, not the west.

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the west wouldnt do much without arab support given the 'coalition' forces were based out of Saudi

MattII said:

Remember, this is only the Arab nations that are okay with this, not the west.

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Bush's motivations for war had much more to do with reassuring KSA than protecting Kuwait, and his Cabinet was divided on how to respond. Furthermore, Congress was pretty divided as well. War isn't inevitable.

If the price of world oil isn't affected and the Arab States are OK with it, I think the west will condemn the use of force to affect political change and it'll end at that. If atrocities are committed on an even greater scale, Iraq better throw in some sweetners to the west. These seem to be to much to ask of the situation however.

GeographyDude said:

We supported Saddam Hussein all through the 1980s. Well, that one may have some back to bite us in the butt.

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US support for Iraq was conditioned that the US did not want to see an Iranian victory, not an actual support for Saddam who was a client of the Soviets. Many people have grossly overstated the level of US support for Iraq. I think it was Kissinger who summed up the real US evaluation of the Iran-Iraq War - can they both loose?

GeographyDude said:

And U.S. Ambassador April Glaspie's conversation with Saddam Hussein on July 25, 1990:

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It is universally accepted that April Glaspie made a crucial error and did not accurately state the real US position. The US might not care about any intra-Arab diplomacy on a border dispute, but that did not mean the US would accept an invasion of Kuwait and forced annexation.

Saddam too was stupid that he did not ask for clarification, but Ambassador Glaspie clearly did not articulate the real US position at that time in the way it needed to be made. It might be an understandable mistake, but goes to show clear diplomatic language is needed at certain times, even if Amb Glaspie did not realize that was one such time.

After the victory, President Bush called upon the people of Iraq to rise up and rebel. He did not promise backup, but you can kind of forgive them if they thought this was implied. And not that we would let Iraq military units just roll by U.S. positions, which we did. We did implement no fly zones, perhaps belatedly, but that wasn't enough. I think the Iraqi people called this beginnings of a civil war Chapter 3.

It's like President Bush was a poker player with a winning position who then becoming overly cautious and lost feel and texture and medium chance taking. Yes, there was the coalition and the mandate, but you don't just let the troops roll past you. If the Bush Administration, perhaps again using a retired Senator as a negotiator, could have swung some kind of coalition government between Shi'ites and Sunnis that might have been ideal, even if we had had the distasteful aspect of Saddam Hussein honorably retiring, so be it. And we didn't do a very good job restoring human rights in Kuwait either.

And then, how did Bush lose the '92 election ? ? How did he go from 91% approval to losing an election about a year and a half later? I think part of the situation is that he was perceived as not finishing a job. And this also fit into a narrative people created that he was not engaged in trying to fix the economy. I mean, he spends six months pre-war and then the war itself demonizing Saddam Hussein and saying he's a moral monster (when sadly, there are probably about thirty dictators worldwide who are approximately just as bad, some of whom we support) and then lets the guy stay in power, well, you can kind of understand why people might question it.


PS ivanotter started this thread, but then it was an orphan thread for a couple of days before re-starting. going to send an PM and let him know.

TFSmith121 said:

If the Iraqi invasion and annexation is recognized, what stops the Saudis from doing the same to the UAE, Quatar, and/or Bahrain?

All of the Gulf states have/have fairly tenuous borders/history...

Best,

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1. The Saudi military was horrendous in 1990.

2. Did the Saudis want those countries ?

In a speech during the build-up Fall '90, in respond to President Bush's statement that aggression cannot stand, Noam Chomsky gave three examples of times when the U.S. gov't did in fact go along with aggression, and often U.S. citizens didn't really fully understand or know about these.

The 1975 invasion of East Timor by Indonesia. really bad and largely unacknowledged, at least until around 1996 and then I think East Timor got independence around 1998.

The mid-70s invasion of Western Sahara by Morocco. And one of the rationales stated by someone justifying this was the statement, one Kuwait is enough. Wow. It really is kind of incredible. Western Sahara was also formerly called Spanish Sahara. Look this up on a globe or a map. If you find Western Sahara, you will sometimes see in parenthesis 'admin. by Morocco,' or something like that.

And then he gives the example of the Israeli invasion of southern Lebanon in the early '80s. And this is controversial obviously, because some areas have been used as staging areas. Perhaps it's the case that both Israel has missed some opportunities for peace and that they could have used some help along the way from their friends regarding security and peacekeeping.

To me personally, Chomsky is too dour and pessimistic. Sometimes things can go well just by good luck if nothing else. He also attributes bad and cynical motives to elected officials. I think it's more often the case that they're dovetailers, for example, they believe oil got our attention in Iraq and then we did the right thing, that kind of thing. But in any case, Noam Chomsky and I guess other 'skeptics' as you might call them should have definitely been part of the free and open discussion leading up to the war.

The situation with Secretary of State James Baker giving instructions to Ambassador April Glaspie. Well, first off, I want to get an additional source for this transcript because I think what I posted above is a university site which gives space to any member of the university community. And looking it up and going one level up the tree, yes, it is one professor's website, which does seem to gel with the below New York Times site.

And then . . .

I think it's actually pretty good as a low-key approach and a soft sell. Glaspie is saying:

We don't have an opinion on border disputes, please talk with Klibi or Mubarak, we are concerned with recent pro-war statements. [paraphrased]

To me, that's pretty good general diplomacy. If she knew Saddam Hussein better, maybe she made a mistake not using another approach.

And if we're going to blame someone, I'd be more inclined to blame the boss James Baker and not her.

=======

http://www.nytimes.com/1990/09/23/w...eeting-with-us-envoy.html?src=pm&pagewanted=1

Looks like the same information, but this whole thing is not my main objection.

When Iraq used chemical weapons in the late 80s, we filed an official protest but basically shrugged our shoulders. When we supported Iraq through it's war with Iran, and I think supporting Saddam Hussein in the 70s and earlier . . . . . all this would be getting closer to my main objection. Namely, that we seem to support any old dictator who is friendly to American corporate interests, the heck with human rights.

Well, it wasn't like the UAE, Quatar, and Bahrain were

xerex said:

1. The Saudi military was horrendous in 1990.

2. Did the Saudis want those countries ?

Click to expand...

Well, it wasn't like the UAE, Quatar, and Bahrain were military powerhouses...

Best,

Geograydude: Thanks for your email.

Yes, this thread has had a lonely life up until now.

I agree that the Glaspie interaction is a critical element here.

Here is a curved ball: Could her comments also be interpreted as having the backing (or at least consent) of Saudi?

Saudi was after all the major US partner and also the UK partner in the El Yamanah military purchase deals.

What if Saddam gets his ACC off the ground? Egypt is a major player and cannot be overlooked. It was a bit of a coup of Saddam to get Egypt into his ACC group.

The meeting with Kuwait in late July might have produced results if Saudi and Egypt were prepared to sacrifice Kuwait?

What would it take for Saddam to get the blessing of Saudi and Egypt?

- to be more Muslim? (less reforms)
- to be less of a candidate of Arab unity? It did rub people up the wrong way that he so clearly put his hand up on this issue?
- To cancel ACC?

Kuwait were not generally liked and the 'life style' of the families were rather against the Saudi austere way of life (although that is not a general rule either. Yes. I have been to Saudi doing some work for a shorter period).

If Kuwait should have vanished off the maps in 1990:

- Iraq oil revenue?
- Saudi co-operation with Saddam - not necessarily equated with 'Iraq'
- US co-operation and acknowledgement of the new ownership?
- UK weapons sale to Iraq vs sale to Saudi? (there is a good book on the Matrix-Churchill machines which gives a good insight into the Iraqi dealings

(Paul Henderson: an Unlikely Spy).

The key is of course: Would Saddam have been satisfied with Kuwait? if not, it puts a different spin on it all

Ivan

there was an earlier thread dealing with Saddam taking only PART of Kuwait https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/archive/index.php/t-153010.html

difficult to see the U.S. at war over disputed oilfield (Rumalia) on behalf of despised Kuwaitis?

IF Saddam was smart enough to stop there.

I personally think the Glaspie conversation is neither particularly terrible nor particularly critical (I wanted to include the complete longer version of the quote and give myself a chance to think about it).

The more significant thing is that we supported Saddam Hussein all through the 1980s.

I often find it interesting and challenging to take a bad situation and think of a couple of small to medium changes where things work out much better.

My preferred solution is that President George Bush allows Saddam Hussein to save face, and he leaves Kuwait. Yes, you allow a thug to save face.

I will have to ponder what one of my preferred solutions might be if Saudi Arabia and other Arab nations don't particularly mind Iraq invading and annexing Kuwait.

GeographyDude said:

I personally think the Glaspie conversation is neither particularly terrible nor particularly critical (I wanted to include the complete longer version of the quote and give myself a chance to think about it).

The more significant thing is that we supported Saddam Hussein all through the 1980s.

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The thing about supporting dictators had to be really uncomfortable for those diplomats once the 90s came around, and I'm surprised that the US wasnt forced to intervene more often after the Cold War. We supported our anticommunist thugs while the Russians supported their communist thugs, and once the Cold War was done, people started to think that these guys were no longer worth the trouble. Saddam was one of these, and when he decided to screw with the worlds oil supply I can't expect he saw everyones reaction as a surprise.

GeographyDude said:

The more significant thing is that we supported Saddam Hussein all through the 1980s.

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we supported him through part of the Iran-Iraq War, after it looked like Iran had a chance of attacking into Iraq itself. Having Iran take over Iraq and then be sitting next to a lot of vulnerable Gulf states would have been hideous. So, the USA took a quiet role in giving Saddam intelligence on the enemy, out of lack of options. As someone noted above, what we really wanted was both sides to lose, and that's pretty much what happened.

GeographyDude said:

My preferred solution is that President George Bush allows Saddam Hussein to save face, and he leaves Kuwait. Yes, you allow a thug to save face.

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I don't know if it would allow him to 'save face', but Saddam had the option of leaving Kuwait. It was demanded of him several times before we actually went to war, and he declined. Of course, this whole POD of 'the other Arab states really don't care' would change things a lot...