A Justifiable, If Not Just War The American Persian Gulf War Essay, Research Paper

A Justifiable, if non Just, War:

The American Persian Gulf War

The American-led war against Iraq in the Persian Gulf in 1991 was one of the specifying minutes of the post-Cold War epoch. Although its six-week continuance was comparatively short when compared with struggles such as the Vietnam, Afghan or Korean Wars, the graduated table of the war and the magnitude of the devastation involved were however important.

A inquiry that was, and has been, much debated is whether the U.S. Administration, under President George Bush, was justified in traveling to war against Iraq which was, and remains, under the government of Saddam Hussein. This essay will reason that, in footings of a merely war, the American engagement in the part was morally equivocal and likely indefensible. However, in footings of American involvements & # 8211 ; and, so, in footings of the economic and political involvements of many other parties in the struggle & # 8211 ; the American-led war with Iraq was justifiable. This differentiation, as will be seen, is of import sing the complex web of involvements and interested parties that focused on the Persian Gulf in 1990-91.

In military footings, the Persian Gulf War represented the apogee of modern military engineering and tactics. In the first two hebdomads of the air run against Iraq, the Allied air forces dropped more conventional explosives on Iraq and Kuwait than had been dropped in World War Two, which had lasted 310 hebdomads. To keep its 430,000 military personnels in the war, the United States military had to travel some 6 million lbs of supplies a twenty-four hours ( Hiro, 4 ) .

It was a war that was to stop in an overpowering triumph for the American-led alliance. During the six-week run Iraq suffered about 82,000 casualties & # 8211 ; a figure arrived at through a critical analysis of the hyperbolic figures provided to the media by both sides, with over three-fourthss being military forces. In comparing, the allied alliance lost, in the full seven-month period of crisis and the war itself, merely 376 military forces in combat and accidents ( Hiro, 397 ) .

In footings of fiscal cost the sum was reeling. By late March 1991, the cost to the allied ground forcess amounted to some $ 61 billion ; with the Americans paying $ 17.9 billion ( 0.34 % of the US one-year GDP ) and the Alliess $ 43.1 billion. The Saudi Arabian authorities itself paid an estimated $ 43 billion in subsidies to the Alliess, every bit good as in costs for keeping the ground forcess on its dirt ( 57.3 % of its one-year GDP ) . Kuwait & # 8217 ; s government-in-exile paid $ 22 billion to finance the allied ground forcess ( over 300 % of its one-year GDP ) at a clip when they would endure reeling fiscal losingss as a consequence of the 640 oil Wellss that would be put out of committee when set ablaze by withdrawing Iraqi military personnels. The Iraqi economic system was, gratuitous to state, wholly devastated by the struggle ; a cost that would go on past the terminal of the belligerencies as a consequence of the United Nations & # 8217 ; trade trade stoppage against Iraq ( Hiro, 397-398 ) .

Clearly, there were tremendous costs from the war that were borne by all sides in the struggle ; although more by some parties than others. While President Bush could non hold factored all of these costs into his decision-making procedures prior to prosecuting in struggle, they however allow us to better measure the inquiry of justification from a historical position. At this point, it would be utile to reexamine the historical factors lending to the struggle.

The Iraqi invasion and business of Kuwait, that began on August 2 1990, was the merchandise of both long-run, every bit good as immediate, historical factors. The province of Kuwait has its beginnings in the late 19th century when powerful local households asserted their independency from the Ottoman Empire which so controlled, in one signifier or another, much of the Middle East including what would finally go Iraq. The governing Shaikh of Kuwait was merely able to make this with the silent support of the British Empire ; support which assumed official position in 1914 when Kuwait became a British associated state ( Hiro, 11 ) . With the prostration of the Ottoman Empire into a assortment of nation-states, the freshly independent state of Iraq would repeatedly, in the undermentioned decennaries, lay claim to the Emirate of Kuwait. Thus Kuwait was merely able to keep its sovereignty with British military and diplomatic assistance.

The monetary value of this assistance may be seen in a secret wire sent to British Prime Minister Macmillan by his Foreign Secretary after a meeting with the American Secretary of State in 1958: & # 8220 ; at all costs these oilfields [ in Kuwait ] . . . must be kept in Western custodies. The immediate job is whether it is good tactics to busy Kuwait & # 8221 ; ( Hiro, 17 ) .

Clearly, the British, and subsequently the Americans, considered Western control over Kuwaiti oil to be an of import national involvement for some decennaries. Similarly, Iraq had long-standing territorial claims against Kuwait. These conflicting involvements would come to a caput in 1990 at the stopping point of the Iran-Iraq War.

The eight-year long war with Iran had been improbably dearly-won for Iraq. It had financed its military mostly with subsidies from the Arab ( Sunni Muslim ) Gulf States such as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait who were nervous about the spread of Islamic fundamentalism from Persian ( Shi & # 8217 ; a Muslim ) Iran. These subsidies amounted to some $ 15 billion a twelvemonth for eight old ages, a debt which had come due at the stopping point of the war ( Amery, 11 ) . Saudi Arabia was willing to waive portion of the debt, in consideration of the fact that Iraq had been contending in its involvements in the war. Kuwait, on the other manus, insisted upon full refund of this debt ( Amery, 5 ) .

On July 25, 1990, merely yearss prior to the invasion, Saddam Hussein met with the American Ambassador to Iraq, April Glaspie. The transcript of this exchange indicates that this debt & # 8211 ; and Kuwait & # 8217 ; s flouting of OPEC export bounds which had the consequence of take downing Iraq & # 8217 ; s oil grosss & # 8211 ; was a cardinal point in the progressively hostile relationship between Iraq and Kuwait:

Hussein: & # 8220 ; As you know, we spilled rivers of blood in a war that lasted eight old ages, but we did non lose our humanity. Iraqis have a right to populate proudly ; we do non accept that anyone may wound Iraqi pride or the Iraqi right to bask high criterions of life. . . . Kuwait and the UAE ( United Arab Emirates ) were at the head of this policy aimed at take downing Iraq & # 8217 ; s place and striping its people of higher economic standards. & # 8221 ;

( Salinger, 49 )

In his treatment with the Ambassador, Saddam Hussein was clearly trying to spot the American place on his difference with Kuwait, while at the same clip reassuring the Americans that he sought no struggle with them. Indeed, in the transcript he repeatedly makes mention to his grasp of America & # 8217 ; s primary involvement in the country, and reassures the Ambassador in this respect: & # 8220 ; We understand clearly America & # 8217 ; s statement that it wants an easy flow of oil. . . . The United States wants to procure the flow of oil. This is apprehensible and understood & # 8221 ; ( Salinger, 51 ) .

The job Hussein faced, and why he likely arrived at the misconception that the United States would tacitly O.K. of his invasion of Kuwait, was that the American Administration, in the period instantly anterior to the struggle, was extremely sympathetic toward the Iraqi government.

Although it is difficult to believe today, after old ages of public denouncements of Saddam Hussein, in the late 1980s Hussein & # 8217 ; s Iraq was seen as a rampart against the much greater menace of Islamic fundamentalism from Iran. As tardily as April 1990, Senator Bob Dole, a ulterior Republican campaigner for the Presidency, led a deputation to Iraq to reenforce the American desire for closer ties with Hussein & # 8217 ; s government. This was an issue of peculiar concern to Dole as farming provinces, such as his Kansas, exported $ 1 billion in wheat and nutrient merchandises to Iraq every twelvemonth ( Salinger, 25 ) .

Subsequently that same month Secretary of State James Baker, in an visual aspect before a Senate appropriations subcommittee, was notably loath to reprobate Iraq for its ownership and threatened usage of chemical arms: & # 8220 ; I am non taking sides in the statement & # 8221 ; he observed ( Amery, 85 ) . Indeed, up to five yearss before the invasion, when President Bush was informed in a CIA briefing that Hussein was fixing to occupy Kuwait, the State Depar

tment “continued to province publically, for the universe and Saddam Hussein to hear, that the US would stay impersonal in any Iraq-Kuwaiti struggle, asseverating that the US had no duty to come to Kuwait’s assistance militarily” ( Amery, 82 ) .

Although it is a affair of historical record that many persons in the Congress, the authorities, and the national security bureaus were concerned about this policy, it does look that the Bush Administration was go oning the policy Bush had himself lobbied for as Vice President in the Reagan Administration: that Iraq could play an influential and utile function in the part in the hereafter ( Amery, 84 ) . By the clip of the Gulf War, Iraq had become America & # 8217 ; s 3rd largest trading spouse in the Middle East, after Israel and Saudi Arabia, and was the purchaser of significant sums of American military hardware ; frequently through a assortment of covert or third-party channels ( Ridgeway, 14 ) . Therefore, despite the efforts of the Bush Administration to revise the historical record after the fact ( & # 8220 ; Our place so was what it is now & # 8211 ; such a ictus is a misdemeanor of international jurisprudence and unacceptable to this disposal & # 8221 ; ( Amery, 83 ) ) , the US authorities clearly bears some of the mistake for Hussein & # 8217 ; s misreading of the international state of affairs.

When Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait on August 2 1990, driving the Emir of Kuwait into expatriate in Saudi Arabia, the reaction in the West was speedy and decisive. That same twenty-four hours, President Bush signed an executive order censoring trade with Iraq and, along with Britain, France and the Soviet Union ( Iraq & # 8217 ; s chief weaponries provider ) froze Iraq & # 8217 ; s and Kuwait & # 8217 ; s assets in the United States. In the military kingdom, he dispatched an aircraft bearer conflict group to the Persian gulf, while on the diplomatic forepart he engineered a consentaneous United Nations Security Council Resolution reprobating the invasion and demanding an immediate backdown of Iraqi forces ( Ridgeway, 59 ) .

It is hard to measure, in visible radiation of the historical record noted above, why the Bush Administration made what appears to be such a sudden about turn on the topic of Iraq. Within a affair of yearss the United States had gone from what was antecedently a slightly diplomatic relationship with Iraq to the point where the Bush disposal was pulling analogues between Saddam Hussein and Adolf Hitler. Clearly, Hussein could by no agencies be compared, in power or significance, to the Nazi dictator whose aspirations plunged Europe and much of the universe into the Second World War ( Hiro, 192 ) .

Many beginnings on the American side subsequently cited Bush & # 8217 ; s personal intercession as being the drive force behind the American response to the invasion. In the words of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Colin Powell, Bush was the & # 8220 ; spark stopper and fuel & # 8221 ; for Desert Shield and Desert Storm ( Yetiv, 63 ) . Indeed, Powell worried in private how Bush personalized the struggle with Hussein and commented on:

& # 8220 ; how much it affected Bush & # 8217 ; s ad hoc policymaking, characterized by an occasional deficiency of audience with others and utmost sulfuric acid against Saddam. Even Secretary Baker expressed concern to Plutos that the White House was rushing toward an armed confrontation with Saddam. & # 8221 ;

( Yetiv, 64 )

Bush & # 8217 ; s justification for Operation Desert Shield, and subsequently Desert Storm was chiefly, as he announced to the populace on August 3 1990, that the & # 8220 ; unity of Saudi Arabia & # 8221 ; was one of America & # 8217 ; s & # 8220 ; critical involvements & # 8221 ; ( Ridgeway, 60 ) . However, it is clear from both the diplomatic record prior to the invasion, and from historical histories of the clip, that Hussein had no purpose of assailing Saudi Arabia. Indeed, the military worlds of the part were such that he could hold invaded the Kingdom in the aftermath of his business of Kuwait, and at that place would hold been small the United States could hold done & # 8211 ; with no important military forces in the part at the clip & # 8211 ; to halt him ( Hiro, 120-21 ) . That he did non suggests that he had no wider involvement than occupying Kuwait.

The Bush Administration and the United States, nevertheless, clearly did hold wider involvements. It appears clear that the United States had no existent moral justification for the war. Contrary to popular belief, Bush & # 8217 ; s chief military advisors at the clip, Generals Powell and Schwarzkopf, argued against the usage of military force ( Yetiv, 65 ) . However, Bush was believing beyond the issues of Kuwait & # 8217 ; s territorial unity, or even the menace to America & # 8217 ; s oil supplies from the part which was, by the way, a extremely overdone menace given the fact that Iraq, insolvent in the aftermath of the Iran-Iraq War, had publically stated its wish to sell every bit much oil to the West as it could pump ( Carpenter, 42 ) .

Alternatively, it seems clear President Bush was believing of historical case in points such as Chamberlain & # 8217 ; s failed policy of & # 8220 ; calming & # 8221 ; of Hitler, to which Bush referred repeatedly during the crisis. Indeed, this caused Defense Secretary Cheney to come to the decision that Bush & # 8217 ; s & # 8220 ; formative old ages. . . in World War II as a Navy pilot in the Pacific were determining American policy in the 1990s & # 8221 ; ( Yetiv, 68 ) . A more immediate case in point ballad in the catastrophes of the Vietnam War and President Jimmy Carter & # 8217 ; s Middle East policy which encouraged a belief in the diminution of American power.

With the near-collapse of the Soviet Union and the terminal of the Cold War, the United States was confronted, in the 1990s, with the dangers and possibilities of a & # 8216 ; new universe order. & # 8217 ; Bush recognized that, were the United States to let other parties to find the form of that order, it would hold sedate deductions for American planetary prestigiousness and power. Indeed, it is of import to observe that:

Before the Gulf War, it was stylish to speak about American diminution and to discourse the lifting power of Germany and Japan. After the war, such talk subsided. Germany and Japan, which made no strong base against Iraq, looked weak during the crisis, while the United States appeared confident, capable, and even dominant.

( Yetiv, 55 )

In this context, President Bush was justified in taking the military intercession against Iraq. Prior to Saddam Hussein & # 8217 ; s invasion American policy was equivocal and confounding. Bush recognized the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait for the historical turning-point that it was and used it to his, and his state & # 8217 ; s, advantage.

Were the United States to hold appeared hesitant to utilize the significant military forces it had built up in the Reagan epoch, it would hold been seen by the remainder of the universe as a & # 8216 ; paper tiger & # 8217 ; . The Bush Administration & # 8217 ; s unusually successful diplomatic attempt in building the alliance against Hussein established the state as the undeniable leader of the planetary community in the station Cold War epoch ( Yetiv, 68 ) .

The renewed international fright and regard for American political and military power, which occurred as a consequence of the Gulf War, may be seen today in parts such as the former Yugoslavia, where European states were notably unable to halt Serbian aggression until the United States intervened. Similarly, the free manus the United States has possessed in determining the Israel-Palestinian peace agreements is another direct result of the addition in American prestigiousness and power in the aftermath of the war. Although Bush could non hold predicted either of these happenings, he clearly realized that the future function and influence of the United States in planetary personal businesss depended upon his taking a strong base against Saddam Hussein. In this respect, despite the costs of the Persian Gulf War, the American military intercession was politically, if non morally, justified.

Plants Cited

Amery, H.M. and W.A. Madhoun ( eds. ) . Determining the Gulf: In Search

of Order. London, ON: Canadian Institute for Policy

Analysis, 1992.

Carpenter, Ted Galen. America Entangled: The Persian Gulf Crisis

and its Consequences. Washington, D.C. : Cato Institute, 1991.

Hiro, Dilip. Desert Shield to Desert Storm: The Second Gulf War.

London: HarperCollins, 1992.

Ridgeway, James ( ed. ) . The March to War: From Day One to War & # 8217 ; s

End and Beyond. New York: Four Walls Eight Windows, 1991.

Salinger, Pierre and Eric Laurent. Secret Dossier: The Hidden

Agenda Behind the Gulf War. New York: Penguin, 1991.

Yetiv, Steve. The Iranian Gulf Crisis. Westport, Conn. : Greenwood, 1997.