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| Question Forum : Gulf War Issues Date Posted: 25 - September - 2001 | |||||||||||||
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You have stated reasons why you are angry with the Allies' policies in Iraq. What, in your opinion, should have happened when Iraq invaded Kuwait? Does Iraq still maintain that Kuwait belongs to her and would Iraq make another attack on Kuwait? To make the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq the starting point of an analysis of the Gulf Crisis ignores the fact that this was a purposefully manipulated strategy by the United States to gain control over the region. To begin with, the borders drawn between Muslim countries in the Middle East are not historically grown borders, but arbitrarily drawn by the former colonial powers, and part of the aim was to divide the region in a way which would ensure instability and the need for ongoing support by those colonial powers even after their withdrawal. When it comes to the actual invasion, two factors were crucial for encouraging the regime of Saddam Hussein (a Western stooge installed, equipped, paid for and protected by America): a) the manipulation of the oil price with its detrimental effect on Iraqi debts to Kuwait and an ultimatum by Kuwait for repayment b) the American ambassador's (April Glaspie) encouragement of an invasion by indicating to Iraq that America would remain indifferent to an invasion and consider it as an internal affair. "I have a direct instruction from the president to seek better relations with Iraq... President Bush is an intelligent man. He is not going to wage an economic war against Iraq." (25 July 1990) "...we have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait... James Baker has directed our official spokesman to emphasize this instruction." Through this engineered conflict the United States of America has managed to gain control not just over Kuwait, but also Saudi Arabia and other hitherto inaccessible parts of the Muslim world and has managed to force those oil-affluent economies into debt due to the cost of the military operation. For further information also read:
------------------------------------- Dear
IPB, Thank you for your recent reply to my question about Iraq, in
which I asked what you thought ought to have been done when Iraq
invaded Kuwait. You replied that America deliberately encouraged
Iraq to invade Kuwait, by secretly indicating to Saddam Hussein
that America would not intervene. You also carefully argue why the
invasion of Kuwait is not the appropriate starting-point for the
discussion, as Saddam Hussein's regime itself was the outcome of
America's actions (installing puppet regime), and that in effect
Saddam Hussein was inflicted on the Iraqi people by America. I am
quite prepared to believe all this, given America's historical
reputation for interfering in the middle east and other regions.
Therefore may I ask you another question which may be more
pertinent; namely, what should be done about Iraq NOW. If America
stopped the sanctions and the bombing today, what alternative
strategy would the Islamic Party of Britain offer to:
Yours
in common humanity,
Michael.
Dear
Michael,
As the
question forum is not the place for a continuing discussion, I am
replying directly to you. A good book to read as a background to
the region is Said Aburish's "A Brutal Friendship". In
short, after the colonial withdrawal, Britain, France, and America
having divided the region (not without some competition amongst
themselves) used the same recipe of maintaining control from
outside: give power to a minority group which will forever be
dependent on outside military support. Thus Shia Iraq is ruled by
the Sunni Bath party of Saddam Hussein, whereas Sunni Syria, for
example, is ruled by the Shia/Alevite Hafiz al-Assad etc. This
dependency on Western protection would ensure their compliance
with Western policy interested in securing the resources of the
region. Without Western protection, those minority rulers would
have fallen long ago. The West encouraged Kurdish insurgence, but
did nothing to prevent the backlash. Whilst Iraq was still a
trusted ally against Iran, Kurdish people were gassed with nerve
agents supplied by Western "democracies".
Iraq
was indeed a highly developed nation, but has now become a country
without even basic sewage systems. That Iraq still holds weapons
of mass destruction seems a myth upheld to justify continuing
aggression. Iraq's people are no longer in a position to put up
any resistance be it to the outside world or internally. The
problem is that Western democratic governments have always
supported tyrannies in the rest of the world, because democratic
governments would not as happily surrender their people's
resources. Thus the CIA toppled the democratic government of
Mossadek in Iran and installed the Shah, and their cries for
democracy after Khomenei took power sound hollow.
As does
their outcry against the Taliban, whom they supported until
recently against the Iranian-friendly Afghan government after the
Russian withdrawal. Power politics is a dirty game. Without
Western interference countries in the region would quite rapidly
rid themselves of their tyrants and after some period of
instability, perhaps, find their equilibrium. The model of
governance they will choose is likely to draw on Islamic sources
and not on the concepts of Western parliamentary democracy, but
this is not the reason why existing powers don't want this to
happen. The reason is that a self-governed nation is not likely
going to be subservient to an outside usurper, a lesson learnt
when the Iranian Mossadek government set out to nationalise their
oil companies. This was the move that sealed their fate.
As the
late CIA operative Miles Copeland pointed out: Would we be
fighting over Iraq and Kuwait if they only grew cabbages? Well
no!
Yours,
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