"The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones. "

[hedgehog]

“Remember, George, this is no time to go wobbly.”
By Oliver Willmott Published 10 November 2010



On 2 August 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait. The next day, Margaret Thatcher played an instrumental role in persuading President H W Bush to take a tough stance against the Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein.

http://www.newstatesman.com/uk-politics/2010/11/kuwait-august-iraq-thatcher

[jollyreaper2112]

1. I'm just hoping she stays in her grave

Only the good die young; only evil seems to live forever. -- Iron Maiden

[bigtree]

2. good always leaves

bad comes to stay

[malthaussen]

3. We should have said "Good for you, Saddam?"

In general, I think it is unwise to allow such aggression to go unanswered. The wars of this century are senseless, but the first Iraq war was justified IMO.

-- Mal

[SharonAnn]

4. Except that we didn't know about all the causes of that war.

A key factor was that Kuwait was "slant-drilling" to build oil wells that pumped oil out of Iraq into Kuwait. And we knew about that and supported the regime in that.

That's was the trigger for Iraq to go to war against Kuwait.

So, of course, we supported Kuwait and put back on the "throne" a perfectly disgusting dictator who happened to be "our friend".

Why don't we have better friends?

[malthaussen]

5. Well, that's easy

No decent person could love our government.

-- Mal

[bigtree]

6. the U.S. lured Saddam into invading Kuwait (April Glaspie)

. . . clearly at the behest of Saudi Arabia who wanted to keep them from gaining a port to transport their oil and stifle Iraq's influence on the oil market.

In a now famous interview with the Iraqi leader, U.S. Ambassador April Glaspie told Saddam, ‘We have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait.' The U.S. State Department had earlier told Saddam that Washington had ‘no special defense or security commitments to Kuwait.' The United States may not have intended to give Iraq a green light, but that is effectively what it did."

context: http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/01/08/wikiileaks_april_glaspie_and_saddam_hussein

[JHB]

7. IMO, it was his "wobbliness" that added to the fire

During the first 24 hours Saddam's claims and justifications kept escalating as world opinion came down more and more against him.

First he was simply "liberating" Kuwait from the al-Sabbah family, presumably to be replaced with a new puppet regime. Then, an occupation, later still an annexation of their long-lost province, etc. My impression as it unfolded was that he kept upping the ante for what would be required to undo what he'd done, thinking he'd eventually hit a point where no one would actually deploy what was needed to oust him.

I realize this is just my private opinion, but if Bush had contacted him directly (and privately) and let him know in no uncertain terms that whatever he thought was OK'd in his meeting with Ambassador Glaspie, it didn't include an invasion and takeover. Even at that point, it was clear the Soviets would be in no position to counter a US move, especially on something as blatant as an invasion, so that everything we'd stockpiled to fight WW3 was available to come down on his head. That may have been enough to have him slink out and call the whole thing a "punative raid" due to the slant drilling.

Instead, Bush dithered until the meeting with Thatcher, by which time Saddam had committed himself to holding Kuwait, and the full-blown counterinvasion would be needed to get him out.

I also grant that it's possible Bush actually did that and Saddam rebuffed him, but that was my take.

The biggest thing to note about that war was how it ended, or didn't. Bush didn't really want to upset the status quo, he just wanted someone other than Saddam so that everyone could wash their hands of it. That's what his call for "democracy" was for once he stopped the ground war: he was fishing for someone in the military to stage a coup. Saddam, however, was actually good at keeping anyone else from gaining a base of support, so nobody in the army wanted to stick their neck out. Instead, there were uprisings in the Shia and Kurdish areas, and Bush let Saddam put them down, all sides were in limbo, and it was just left as an open sore.