Iraq: It Started With a Bang

President Obama addressed a convention of disabled veterans in Atlanta today declaring that all American combat troops in Iraq - which, I believe is still trying to form a new government after the elections in March - and even though today is the twentieth invasion of Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait, Mr. Obama did not mention the event.

The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait was actually a watershed moment for the world, as it was the point where the Cold War began to end and a new era of geopolitics began to emerge. With greater instability in the Middle East and Iraq's sudden control of over 20 percent of the world's oil as a result of his occupation of Kuwait, Western focus shifted from the Soviet Union - a year and change away from dissolving - and eastern Europe to the rise of Arab and Islamic influence. President George Bush sent troops to Saudi Arabia to check the Iraqi army from going any further and then push Saddam's troops out of Kuwait when it became apparent that Saddam wouldn't give it up without a fight. This angered Osama bin Laden, who resented the presence of American troops in his homeland, which led him to form al-Qaeda from the anti-Soviet resistance in Afghanistan, from which the Soviets had withdrawn and which the Americans forgot about. (Bin Laden wanted to use his commandos to defend Saudi territory, but King Fahd would have none of it.) Bin Laden himself took up residence in Afghanistan much later after living in Sudan, where he approved and oversaw the plotting of the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks that took place in September 2001, which the second President Bush used as an excuse to invade . . . Iraq.

Before August 2, 1990, Saddam Hussein was a thuggish dictator who persecuted his own people and had grand but unrealized ambitions of controlling more of the Middle East. His invasion of Kuwait upset the balance of power in the Persian Gulf region. In the eighties, the United States had supported his regime as a counterweight against the Islamic fundamentalists who ran Iran, and American support allowed Saddam to wage an eight-year war against Iran. When he forcibly annexed Kuwait, the elder Bush must have wondered who would provide a counterweight to Saddam.

I must admit this: The Persian Gulf War was the right war to prosecute, although I didn't think so at the time. Although I feared it would lead to World War III and last interminably, what happened was that the Iraqi army was decimated in six weeks, Kuwait regained its sovereignty, and a peace was quickly established in which Saddam was contained by the American and British air forces. War was never actually declared against Iraq - an official declaration of war, if I'm not mistaken was made in advance by Saddam's rubber-stamp Parliament recognizing a state of war if Kuwait was invaded by the Americans and their allies - but the resolution Congress gave to the senior to wage war was used judiciously. Bush could have allowed American troops to go deep into Iraq, march on Baghdad, and overthrow Saddam - but he merely wanted to restore Kuwaiti sovereignty, not remake Iraqi civilization. Besides, Bush, Secretary of State James Baker, and General Norman Schwarzkopf knew what would happen if they tried to invade and occupy Iraq. Exactly what happened when Bush's son did the same thing. The younger Bush's war didn't start a global conflict, but, boy, has it been interminable.

Was it about oil? Of course it was about oil, but bear in mind that in 1990, the U.S. only got twelve percent of its oil from the Gulf region, while Germany and Japan got much more of their oil from there. Japan actually paid for much of the military operation then called Desert Storm. Had Saddam been allowed to annex Kuwait, it would have amounted to appeasement and given carte blanche to starve the West of oil. The Saudis, who have more oil than they need, are happy to sell it to anyone, but Saddam would likely have used greater control of the world's oil as a weapon. It figures that American policymakers only realized that after it was too late, after having propped him up for eleven years.

If Albert Gore - who supported the Persian Gulf War but has never supported the current war in Iraq - had become President in 2001 instead of George Walker Bush, there likely wouldn't have been another war in Iraq, but we'd probably still be in Afghanistan and we would still be struggling against al-Qaeda and the Taliban. And while our dealings with Iraq would have been different, they wouldn't necessarily have turned out better. It's only fair to say they would have been different.

The effects of the invasion of Kuwait twenty years ago today, despite shift in American policies based on who's in the White House, are likely to last for a long time.