The 20th Century
International Relations since 1919
Why did events in the Gulf matter, c. 1970-2000?
Framing Questions
What was the nature of the Shah’s What were the consequence of
rule in Iran?
the rule of Saddam Hussein up to
What was the Iranian Revolution 2000 for different groups in Iraq?
of 1979?
Why was there a revolution in
Iran in 1979?
How did Saddam Hussein rise to
power in Iraq?
Why was Saddam Hussein able to
come to power in Iraq?
What was the nature of Saddam
Hussein’s rule in Iraq?
What were the causes and
consequences of the Iran-Iraq War,
1980-1988?
What was the involvement of
Western powers in the Iran-Iraq
War?
What were the causes, course, and
consequences of the Gulf War,
1990-1991?
Why did the first Gulf War take
place?
A Sketch of Iran and Iraq in the 20th Century
The national boundaries of the Middle East were drawn by the British
and French after WWI; consequently, the borders of Iran and Iraq were
not drawn in accordance with the multi-ethnic character of the region.
Both Iran and Iraq were gradually integrated into the world economy,
and capitalist relations of production were extended continually
throughout both countries.
The central economic
sector catalyzing the
economic integration and
capitalist transformation
of Iran and Iraq was the
extraction of oil and the
processing of petroleum.
The Iranian and Iraqi states were instrumental in facilitating the
processes of economic transformation in both countries and played
increasing roles in the economy.
Agrarian reform in both countries caused the political influence of the
landed classes to wane significantly, led to the deterioration of agricultural
production, and spawned increased migration into the urban centers.
Major urban centers
(especially Tehran and
Baghdad) acquired squalid
slums under the pressures
of urban migration and as
individuals searched for a
better life in the towns
and cities.
The working classes grew, and new intermediate classes, including
salaried professionals, intellectuals, teachers, and a small indigenous
bourgeoisie appeared in both countries.
The political and social influence of the clerical and traditional petty
bourgeoisie came under pressure from economic modernization in both
countries.
Socio-economic development in Iran and Iraq was highly skewed in
favor of thin segments at the top of society, while increasing privation and
social marginalization plagued the largest segments of the population.
Political development did not correspond with socio-economic change
in either country: Socio-economic transformations created new social
expectations and demands among classes and groups, but the political
avenues to address these demands were progressively closed off.
In Iraq, the Arab Ba’th Socialist Party gained political control of the state
in 1968; until 1979, Iran was ruled by the Pahlavi monarchy.
In both countries, because the
oil/petroleum wealth was controlled
by the state and because the state
developed well-honed repressive
apparatuses, the ruling regimes
became considerably autonomous
from the social classes.
Political parties and alternative
political organizations were
systematically attacked and
rendered ineffective.
economic sphere in both Iran and
Iraq produced extremely volatile
political conditions for the ruling
regimes, and in the case of Iran, the
incongruity between the political
and socio-economic worlds fostered
the sustained struggles throughout
the latter half of the 1970s that
culminated in an Islamic revolution.
Increasingly, political opposition
manifested itself in the form of
direct attacks against the regimes
and in protracted struggles in the
countryside.
The disjuncture between the
political sphere and the socio-
Saddam Hussein and Mohammed Reza Shah
(6 March 1975)
A Brief History of Iran (1925-1979)
In a 15 December 1925 coup, Colonel Reza Khan came to power in
Persia, installing himself as Shah and beginning the Pahlavi Dynasty. Reza
Shah, an admirer of Adolf Hitler’s ways and means, changed the name of
Persia to Iran (“Aryan”).
While Iran was officially neutral in World War II, the Allied Powers
considered Reza Shah too friendly toward the Axis Powers. An AngloSoviet invasion of Iran
was launched (25 August
to 17 September 1941) to
secure Iran’s oil fields.
On 16 September 1941,
to preserve the Pahlavi
Dynasty, Reza Shah
abdicated in favor of his
son, who ruled as
Mohammed Reza Shah
Reza Shah
Mohammed Reza Shah
until 11 February 1979.
(c. 1925)
(1939)
In power, the young Mohammed Reza
Shah, like his father, autocratically
presided over a constitutional monarchy.
In response to the Shah’s rule, a series of
politically motivated assassinations and
assassination attempts struck Iran from
1946 to 1955, including a 4 February 1949
attempt on the Shah himself.
In 1944, US President Franklin
Roosevelt met with British
Ambassador Viscount Halifax.
Roosevelt sketched out a map
dividing the Persian Gulf’s oil,
informing Halifax: “Persian oil is
yours. We share the oil of Iraq
and Kuwait. As for Saudi
Arabian oil, it’s ours.”
Ambassador Halifax and President Roosevelt
(12 October 1942)
Mohammed Reza Shah in Hospital
(4 February 1949)
In 1940, Britain controlled
72 percent of the Middle
East’s oil reserves, while the
US held only 10 percent; by
1967, the US controlled
nearly 60 percent, while the
British share had fallen
below 30 percent.
After WWII, the USA took assumed control of the colonial setup
bequeathed by the British and French—maintaining the borders they had
drawn across the Middle East, continuing (even while renegotiating) the
oil concessions they had imposed, and generally defending the regimes
they had installed.
The CIA encouraged anti-colonialist struggles where the British and
French held influence and suppressed nationalist and anti-imperialist
struggles where Americans held influence.
Iran provided the textbook case of the CIA’s
Middle East operations. There, the USA
worked to both edge out the British and to
suppress Iranian nationalism.
The Shah and President Eisenhower
(1959)
The British had monopolized Iranian oil
through the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company,
plundering Iran. In 1949, Anglo-Iranian Oil
paid more to the British government in taxes
than it paid to the Iranian government in
royalties.
Britain’s unrestrained enrichment from
Iran’s vast oil wealth, juxtaposed with
the crippling poverty, which was the lot
of most Iranians, engendered explosive
popular anger and widespread demands
for nationalization of the oil industry.
Above: Anglo-Iranian Oil’s Abadan
Employee Shantytown—without Water or
Electricity (1951); Below: Iranian Prime
Minister Mohammed Mossadeq (1951)
On 21 April 1951, the Majlis
(Parliament of Iran) elected Mohammed
Mossadeq as the new prime minister.
The popular Mossadeq’s political goal
was the overthrow of the Shah, and his
economic goal was the nationalization of
Iran’s oil resources. After receiving 99.5
percent support in a plebiscite on his
government, Mossadeq attempted to
nationalize the Anglo-Iranian Oil
Company in 1953.
In response to Mossadeq’s
nationalization of Iranian oil, the
CIA, at the request of the British,
organized a coup (15-19 August
1953) overthrowing the Iranian
government (with the Shah’s
approval). Mossadeq was arrested
and jailed.
Following the 1953 CIA coup, a
new petroleum agreement voided
Roosevelt’s promise to Halifax. Five
American companies gained
control of 40 percent of Iran’s oil,
reducing British Petroleum’s
(formerly Anglo-Iranian) share to
40 percent and giving French and
Dutch companies the remaining
20 percent.
The 1953 Coup
Mass Media vs. Alternative Media
The Shah would rule Iran for the next 25 years as an absolute monarch,
imprisoning, torturing, and murdering many of his opponents through his
secret police force (SAVAK), while loyally working for US interests in the
region. As the Shah worked closely and happily with the USA in Iran, he,
those close to him, and US companies all gained from what were called
“modernizing” projects as, meanwhile, the lot of most Iranians steadily
worsened. Poverty and illiteracy and repression were rampant.
After the Mossadeq downfall, the Shah tried to contain the modern
classes, while wooing the traditional classes, the bazaaris and the landed
class. In the early 1960s, however, an economic crisis and American
pressure for land reform—pressure to import US foodstuffs and to export
cash crops—forced the Shah to implement reforms known as the White
Revolution. In the Land Reform Law of 1962, the Shah broke the backs of
the traditional landed class. Then, the Shah tried to diversify the oil-based
economy through import-substitution-industrialization, but, as he did so,
he came into direct conflict with the bazaar class of merchants and traders.
By the 1970s, the monarchy had lost support of all classes in Iran, holding
on to power through the repression of SAVAK alone.
By the 1970s, the Iranian urban classes included the bourgeoisie,
propertied middle classes including the bazaaris, smaller entrepreneurs and
some 90,000 clergymen, a salaried middle class of over half a million, and a
large working class. In the Iranian countryside, there were absentee
landlords, independent farmers, and agricultural laborers (khoshneshin)
numbering at one million families. The Shah catered to the upper class
through the oil rent, and maintained control over the middle and lower
classes through the police state. In this political atmosphere, the socioeconomic demands and grievances of the subordinated classes were
repressed. An economic crisis in the mid-1970s and the Shah’s
formalization of a one-party political system worsened social
disenchantment. Increasing social agitation and protest from the modern
and traditional middle classes, the working classes, and the urban poor
culminated in a 6-month general strike in 1978. The Shah lost the support
of both the rank and file of the army and of the USA. An extremely diverse
collection of classes and groups had coalesced against the Shah, yet, when
the urban-based political revolution overthrowing the monarchy occurred,
it was an Islamic revolution.
Several factors explain the Islamic
character of the 1979 revolution. First,
an organic link existed between the
bazaaris and the clergy. Both social
classes felt increasingly frustrated by
the secularizing and modernizing
trends under the Shah. The Shah
directly attacked the bazaaris in an
Inside the CIA: On Company Business (1980) anti-profiteering campaign. The
bazaaris found
ideological leadership in Islam, and the clergy cemented the relationship
by sanctioning private property. In turn, the traditional petty bourgeoisie
formed the primary social base of the ‘ulama.
Second, Islam, ad an integral element of Iranian culture, naturally
structured social grievances against a foreign-dominated, repressive state.
Third, the charismatic figures of Ruhollah Khomeini and Ali Shariati
provided a rallying point for the revolution.
Above: Ali Shariati with His Family
Below: Ruhollah Khomeini with a Child
Fourth, in the Shah’s Iran, there was a
lack of alternative opportunities for
political expression. In organizational
terms, the mosque network was crucial
for communication and mobilization
within the repressive political
atmosphere under the Shah. The
religious network became a highly
politicized venue. The mosque became a
key rallying place for people to express
grievances and to hold mourning
ceremonies, where the people could
express both religious and political
sentiments. The Iranian Revolution of
1979 did not become an Islamic
revolution because of any intrinsic
quality of Shi’ism. Rather, the factors
combined to insure that the revolution
would have an Islamic character.
The aftermath of the overthrow of the monarchy represented an intense
internal power struggle, and Iran’s foreign policy reflected this fact. As the
power of the clerics rose, so did an aggressive campaign against Iraq. A
central Islamic narrative is the overthrowing of impious states (futah). The
Iranian people had united against the impious Shah, and, after the ouster
of the Shah, the Iranian clerics maintained social cohesion in Iran by
uniting against Iraq. The
Islamic Republic’s foreign policy was not based
on a culturally imperative religious struggle
with Iraq but on the need of the new Iranian
rulers to consolidate their power. Iran’s new
rulers adroitly redirected popular frustrations
against Satanic foes (the USA and Iraq). In the
case of the US Satan, it resulted in the seizure
of the American Embassy and the holding of
52 hostages for 444 days (4 November 1979 to
20 January 1981). In the case of the Iraqi Satan,
it resulted in the Iran-Iraq War (22 September
1980 to 20 August 1988).
Time Magazine (19 November 1979)
A Brief History of Iraq (1916-1979)
In 1916, Britain, France, and
cloak of respectability for its de
Russia negotiated a secret treaty, the facto partition of the Middle East.
Sykes-Picot Agreement, to
dismember the Ottoman Empire.
The disclosure of Sykes-Picot by the
Bolsheviks triggered outrage and
revolt among the Arabs. An Arab
Independence Party was formed in
1919 that demanded the withdrawal
of Britain and France from the
Middle East.
Britain responded by convening
the League of Nations to ratify its
colonial actions. A May 1920
League of Nations conference at
Sam Remo upheld Sykes-Picot. This
provided Britain with a legalistic
The Sykes-Picot Partition of the Middle East
Britain sent troops to put down
forcibly the Arab uprising. The
British forces were brutal.
T. E. Lawrence (Lawrence of
Arabia) said, “By gas attacks the
whole population of offending
districts would be wiped out
neatly.”
Colonial Secretary Winston
Churchill said, “I am strongly in
favor of using poison gas against
uncivilized tribes.”
The RAF dropped 97 tons of
bombs and fired 183,661 rounds
against the insurgency, killing up to
9,000 Arabs. A series of Kurdish
revolts were also put down.
At the Cairo Conference in March
1921, Churchill and forty Middle
East experts determined the best
means of ensuring British control of
the Middle East. They created the
country of Iraq (meaning “cliff” in
Arabic) out of the Ottoman vilayets
of Basra, Baghdad, and Mosul.
British Troops Enter Baghdad (1917)
Left: The Forty Thieves,
(including T. E. Lawrence and
Winston Churchill) Cairo
Conference (March 1921);
Below: King Faisal
The British colonial authorities
excelled at applying divide and rule
policies to maintain British
supremacy. The new country of Iraq
was weakened by denying it access
to the Persian Gulf through the
creation of an independent
Kuwait (traditionally an
administrative unit of Basra) and by
playing off the central authority of
the Sunni population of Baghdad
with the Kurdish population of
Mosul and the Shi’i population of
Basra.
As monarch of Iraq, the British
crowned Faisal, who was dependent
on British troops to protect his
throne. The British rigged a
boycotted election in support of
Faisal, and at Faisal’s coronation, a
British military band played “God
Save the King.”
percentage of Iraq’s population
beholden to the British.
Agricultural exports led to the
formation of a latifundista style of
agricultural production with the
rise of a landowning class, a peasant
class, and a mercantile bourgeoisie.
British political officers held key
positions in the Iraqi government,
controlled Iraq’s foreign relations,
and had veto power in military and
financial matters. British-owned
firms dominated the main sectors of
Iraq’s economy.
The British created vast private
estates, concentrating wealth,
privilege and authority in a tiny
IPC Oil Wells (Kirkuk, 1932)
The British then took control of
all of Iraq’s oil, forcing Faisal to sign
a concession giving up ownership of
the oil fields to the foreign-owned
Iraq Petroleum Company (IPC) in
return for modest royalties. In 1923,
Churchill reported that the British
government had earned £25.6
million on an investment of £2.
The USA demanded an Open
Door policy in regards to Iraqi oil,
and the 1928 Red Line Agreement
gave US companies 23.75 percent of
IPC. The Americans deliberately
restricted Iraq’s oil production and
development for decades in order to
prevent an oil glut, which would
weaken prices and lower profits.
The oil industry largely charted the
course of Iraqi economic and social
development and provided the basis
for the growth of an urban working
class, resulting in the formation of
the Iraqi Communist Party (ICP) in
1934.
Iraq became a nominally
independent nation in 1932, but the
British continued to put down
revolts and general strikes in Iraq,
testing phosphorus bombs, war
rockets, metal crowsfeet (to maim
livestock), man-killing shrapnel,
liquid fire, and delay-action bombs
in Iraq, and the British occupied
Iraq during WWII to assure control
of Iraqi oil.
King Feisal Opens Giant Pipeline
(British Pathé, 1952)
New Oil Wealth in Iraq
(British Pathé, 1952)
Sitting on the world’s second largest
pool of oil did not benefit the people of
Iraq. In 1952, 55 percent of all privately
held land belonged to 1 percent of all
landowners, just 2,480 families. So many
Iraqi peasants tried to escape rural
poverty that the monarchy passed a law
forbidding them from leaving the land if
they owed any debt, effectively making
most rural-to-urban migration illegal.
Over 10 percent of Baghdad’s population
(92,000 people) lived in shacks made from
palm branches. Over 80 percent of Iraqis
were illiterate. There was but 1 doctor for
every 6,000 people. Just 17 Baghdad
families owned wealth equal to about 60
percent of all private corporate
commercial and industrial capital.
When IPC workers in Kirkuk went on strike in 1946, the police attacked
the strikers, killing ten.
In 1948, tens of thousands of Iraqis took to the streets in what came to be
known as al-Wathbga (“the leap”) to protest the ongoing presence of
British troops in Iraq. The urban working and middle classes became more
nationalist, more anti-imperialist, and more revolutionary.
On 27 January 1948, police killed as many as 400 people at an antigovernment demonstration.
In November 1952, al-Intifada (“the uprising”) began. For two months,
Iraqis demonstrated in the major cities to protest the British presence in
Iraq and the monarchy. In the uprising, police killed dozens of protestors.
On 14 July 1958, General Abdul Karim Qasim and the “Free Officers”
staged a coup to liberate “the beloved homeland from the corrupt crew
that imperialism installed.” The King and the Crown Prince were shot
dead in the palace. The parliament was abolished. The top levels of the
government and of the military were purged. A republic was declared.
Qasim received broad popular support.
Qasim enacted land reform, reducing
the power of the landed elite. He
recognized trade unions and peasant
organizations, the ICP becoming the
“best-organized party in the country.” He
amnestied political prisoners. He
promoted state-sponsored industrial and
military development. He withdrew from
Iraq Bombshell
the US-military Cold War alliance (the
(British Pathé, 1958)
Baghdad Pact) and from the British
sterling area. While demanding the removal of British forces from Iraq,
Qasim established relations with the USSR and China.
Qasim asked the IPC for increased royalties, part ownership, and the
return of undeveloped areas in the IPC concession, but IPC would not
negotiate. In response, Qasim held a 1960 meeting with Iran, Kuwait,
Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, and other oil producing nations in Baghdad,
laying the groundwork for the creation of the Organization of Petroleum
Exporting Countries (OPEC). Qasim also laid the groundwork for the 1964
creation of an Iraqi-controlled, national oil company.
Abdul Karim Qasim with Delegates
at an Afro-Asian Solidarity Meeting
(Baghdad, 12 August 1958)
In 1961, Qasim unilaterally
withdrew IPC’s concession rights in
areas where it was not producing,
renewed Iraq’s claim to Kuwait, and
blocked Kuwait’s entry into the
United Nations and into the Arab
League.
Invoking the 1957 Eisenhower
Doctrine, designating the Middle
East as a vital interest that the USA
would use force to defend, the USA
reacted to Qasim’s republic with
military deployments—that
included nuclear weapons—threats
of war and a covert campaign to
undermine Iraq. US President
Eisenhower stated Kuwait was
essential to British financial
stability; British Foreign Secretary
Selwyn Lloyd secretly cabled that
Kuwait “must be kept in Western
hands at all costs.” In April 1959,
CIA Director Allen Dulles told
Congress that the situation in Iraq
was “the most dangerous in the
world today.”
By 1961, the USA had decided to
change Iraq’s government, the CIA
forming a “Health Alterations
Committee” to assassinate Qasim.
When assassination attempts failed,
the USA ordered IPC to reduce oil
production to bankrupt Iraq and
independent oil companies “to stay
out of Iraq.”
Abdul Karim Qasim Meets with Mustafa Barzani,
Head of the Kurdistan Democratic Party
Qasim did not share Iraq’s oil wealth with the Kurds; nor did he grant
their demands for autonomy; the USA encouraged the Kurds to rebel.
The USA tried to exploit the support of some Iraqi military officers for
the right-wing Ba’th Party. The Ba’th Party was virulently anticommunist, supporting a state-sponsored, oil-funded, oil-funded form or
capitalist industrial development and nationalization under the vague
slogan “unity, freedom, socialism.” The Ba’th leadership thought Qasim
was taking Iraq too far to the left and was alienating Arabs and the West
through his policies on Kuwait, the USSR, and China.
In 1958, Saddam Hussein, who
had been born in 1937 to a family of
landless peasants living near Tikrit
and had been raised by an uncle
who had been imprisoned for
participating in an anti-British
uprising, joined the Ba’th Party. In
1959, Hussein attempted to
assassinate Qasim, fleeing to Cairo
when it failed. In Cairo, Saddam
Hussein became a CIA asset.
According to former Ba’th
leader Hani Fkaiki, “among
party members colluding with
the CIA in 1962 and 1963 was
Saddam Hussein, then a 25year-old who had fled to Cairo after
taking part in a failed assassination
of Qasim…. I often heard CIA
officers, including Archibald
Roosevelt, the grandson of
Theodore Roosevelt and a ranking
CIA official for the Near East and
Africa at the time, speak openly
about their close relationship with
the Iraqi Ba’thists.”
Saddam Hussein and Ba’th Party Student Cell
(Cairo, c. 1960)
On 8 February 1963, with the support of the
CIA, the Ba’thists launched a military coup.
Qasim refused to arm the tens of thousands ICP
members who came to his aid, allowing the
Ba’thists to seize power.
On the night of the coup, the CIA gave the
Ba’thists a list of names of suspected communists,
left-leaning intellectuals, progressives, and radical
nationalists. Baghdad Radio broadcast
Order No. 13 stating that military
units, the police, and the national
guard should summarily execute all
“communist agents” and “supporters
of God’s enemy, Abdul Karim Qasim.”
Within three days, up to 5,000
communists fell victims to extrajudicial executions. Thousands more
were placed in sports grounds turned
into makeshift prisons.
Assassination of Qasim
(8 February 1963)
The Revolt in Iraq
(British Pathé, 1963)
Up to 35,000 people were executed, including lawyers, doctors,
academics and students—as well as workers, women and children. As
almost every family in Baghdad was affected by the killings, arrests, and
torture—and both men and women were equally maltreated—the
Ba’thists’ activities aroused a degree of intense loathing for them that has
persisted among many Iraqis of that generation.
The USA recognized the new Ba’th government
within hours of Qasim’s killing. Kuwait provided
the Ba’th with an $85 million loan. The USA flew
arms from Iran and Turkey to help the Ba’th put
down the Kurdish rebellion. One Ba’th Party
member said, “We came to power on an American
train.”
The unpopularity of the Ba’th Party and divisions
within it resulted in another coup, led by Abdul
Salam Arif, on 18 November 1963. The Ba’thists
failed in a 1964 bid to regain power, and Ba’thists,
including Saddam Hussein, were imprisoned.
Abdul Salam Arif
When Arif died in a helicopter
crash on 13 April 1966, his brother,
Abdul Rahman Arif, took over the
government. Meanwhile, after
Hussein's escape from prison, he
was appointed Deputy Secretary
General of the Ba’th Party.
Abdul Rahman Arif
When General Arif invited
French and Russian oil companies
to develop Iraq’s oil industry, the
USA sent former Treasury Secretary
Robert Anderson to Baghdad to
organize another Ba’thi coup. On 30
July 1968, the Ba’th Party, led by
Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr staged a
successful coup.
Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr
Saddam Hussein
The Ba’th Party purged Iraq’s
military and civil service, placing
party loyalists in all government
positions. A new Iraqi constitution
made the Ba’th Revolutionary
Command Council—in which
Saddam Hussein was Vice
Chairman—the supreme legislative,
executive and judicial authority. By
the early 1970s, Hussein was the
most powerful figure in Iraqi
politics. In 1979, he forced al-Bakr
to resign, and Hussein became Iraq’s
President.
Hussein refused to recognize or to
negotiate with Israel, America’s
chief ally in the Middle East, but he
provided very limited support to the
Palestinians. And under Hussein,
Iraq became the USSR’s most
important Middle Eastern ally, the
USSR supplying Iraq with military,
technical, and economic assistance.
Hussein’s independent
authoritarianism, however, was
preferable to US leaders than the
alternative: a democratic, antiimperialist, or revolutionary Iraq.
Despite having come to power
with US assistance, once in power,
Hussein challenged US hegemony
concerning Israel and the USSR.
In 1972, Hussein nationalized the
Iraq Petroleum Company, allowing
OPEC to sharply raise crude oil
prices throughout the 1970s.
The USA strengthened its
relationship with Iran and Saudi
Arabia to balance Iraq’s
independence, and, once again, the
USA (and Iran) cynically supported
a Kurdish rebellion to weaken Iraq,
providing $16 million in CIA
money, weapons, and logistical
support between 1972 and 1975.
The USA did not desire a
Kurdish victory, as that would
have created difficulties for
Turkey and for Iran and would have
invited the USSR to intervene.
Instead, support for
Iraqi Kurds was used as a bargaining
chip to gain control
of the Shatt al Arab (Arvand
Rud). Eight hours after Hussein
agreed to US-Iranian terms on the
Iran-Iraq border, formalized in the
Algiers Agreement of 6 March 1975,
Iran and the US cut off aid—
including food—to the Kurds and
closed Iran’s border, leaving the
Kurds without a line of retreat.
Kurdish Refugees on the Iran-Iraq Border (1974)
The Shah of Iran, US President Gerald Ford, and
Secretary of State Henry Kissinger (May 1975)
Hussein crushed the Kurdish revolt,
resulting in 20,000 combined
casualties. He forcibly relocated
250,000 Kurds and created 200,000
refugees. Commenting on US policy
towards the Kurds, National Security
Advisor Henry Kissinger said, “Covert
action should not be confused with
missionary work.”
The nationalization of IPC in 1972 gave Hussein the financial power
necessary to act independently of any particular social class in Iraq.
Hussein also relied on the repressive apparatus of the state, including the
Amn (Internal State Security), the Estikhbarat (Military Intelligence), the
Mukhabarat (Party Intelligence), the regular army, and the party militia to
liquidate all alternative political organizations within Iraq. Iraqis who
were discovered organizing secretly outside the Ba’th Party were punished
by death. Public discourse and debate progressively narrowed, creating a
political vacuum described as “the death of politics.”
Oil revenues transformed the
Ba’th Party from its petty bourgeois
origins into an independent entity
concerned primarily with regime
maintenance. The Ba’th Party rested
on an extremely narrow social
footing. The Ba’th Party co-opted
the ICP in the Progressive Patriotic
National Front of 1973 and drove it
underground. Strikes became illegal.
The Ba’th Party choked off the
means for expressing socioeconomic and political interests.
To deal with the grievances of
peasant cooperative societies, trade
unions, and women’s or youth
organizations, the Ba’th Party
penetrated and manipulated social
organizations to further Ba’thi
needs and interests or created its
own interest groups. The General
Federation of Iraqi Women, for
example, furthered Ba’thi breeding
requirements. By eliminating
alternative mediums of political
expression, the Ba’th Party
disempowered aggrieved groups and
classes within Iraqi society.
General Federation of
Iraqi Women Pamphlet
(n.d.)
Iraq’s socio-economic
development created extreme social
dislocation, particularly as rural
reforms eroded living conditions in
the countryside and prompted
massive migration into the urban
centers. The rapidly shifting
demographics contributed to
deplorable living conditions in
towns and cities. The slums of
Madinat ath-Thawrah in Baghdad,
originally designed to house no
more than 300,000 people, came to
house 1.5 million. Slum life bred
social grievances, and Madinat athThawrah was a stronghold of both
ICP and Shi’i opposition.
Madinat ath-Thawrah (2005)
Modernizing and secularizing
tendencies in Iraq threatened the
material support and prestige of the
clerical class. Iraqi ‘ulama reacted
by forming the Fatimiyyah party in
1964. By the late 1970s, there were
two Shi’i parties, as-Da’wah alIslamiyyah (“Islamic Call”) and alMujahidin (“Muslim Warriors”).
Additionally, Islamic beliefs about
legitimacy and political obedience
gave form to existing social
grievances arising out of the
extreme poverty and political
marginalization of the masses.
Shi’ism was identified with the
rebellion and struggle of the
downtrodden and oppressed in the
Islamic empire, and its doctrines
accommodated aspirations for social
justice and equality. Shi’ism
structured and animated social
struggles against the Ba’th.
By the late 1970s, Islamic
processionals in Iraq had become
important political stages.
Demonstrations in Shi’i towns and
neighborhoods increased as did
clashes with the police and guerilla
attacks on the police, the Ba’th
Party, and the army. In a 1977
processional between Najaf and
Karbala, the crowd chanted,
“Saddam, remove your hand! The
people do not want you!” Hussein
responded with tarhib (terror) and
targhib (the proverbial carrot).
The Day of Ashura—An Annual Protest
against Tyrants (Karbala, 6 January 2009
In April 1980, prominent Shi’i
leaders, including Baqir as-Sadr and
his sister, were executed; concurrently,
Hussein initiated a program of statefunded mosque building. The Ba’thi
regime feared an Islamic revolution
and took steps to prevent one.
Amina Haydar as-Sadr (Bint al-Huda)
As well as using oil revenues to
and Mohammad Baqir as-Sadr
insulate himself from any social class,
Hussein used oil revenues to deal with social classes and potentially
explosive issues. The regime financed political base-building with the
almost unlimited funds available for all kinds of educational, welfare,
industrial and other capital projects. Periodic wage increases allowed the
regime to avoid direct confrontations with the working class. State-funded
mosque construction created employment in the building sector. The
regime absorbed surplus labor in a notoriously inefficient and bloated
public service sector. Oil revenues paid for tens of thousands of television
sets and cash payments that were given to displaced Kurds. Thus, oil
revenues were crucial for regime maintenance.
Perhaps even more important to
the Ba’th regime was the need to
use oil revenues to feed the parasitic
upper class of contractors, brokers,
bureaucrats, and speculators fully
dependent upon state development
projects and frequently receiving
concessions
Baghdad Railway Station (2002)
from the state by being allowed to
bypass tax and labor laws. By 1975,
for example, there were 2,788
contractors registered with the
state. The parasitic bourgeoisie, in
turn, formed an important base of
support for the regime.
French Prime Minister Jacques Chirac and
Saddam Hussein Conclude Trade Agreement
(December 1974)
The importance of oil revenues to control the lower classes and to enrich
the upper class created special vulnerabilities for the Ba’th regime. Hussein
needed to secure and to stabilize oil revenues. Besides fluctuations in the
world market price for crude oil that could limit Iraqi oil revenues,
Hussein was faced with structural and situational vulnerabilities arising
from the fact that Iraq was essentially a landlocked country. Iraq’s limited
access in the Persian Gulf limited the profitability of its offshore terminals,
and the only other avenues for exporting oil were pipelines through Syria
and through Turkey. Thus, Hussein was vulnerable to international
political conditions. Indeed, the flow of Iraqi oil via the Syrian pipeline
had been subject to numerous interruptions. Hussein sought to gain
regional
hegemony by enhancing his
prestige within the Arab world,
which would give him greater
influence over OPEC production
and pricing policy, and to gain
control of the Shatt al-Arab as a
means to secure oil revenues.
Iraqi Dinar (1973)
The Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988)
The Iran-Iraq War was very
are bad enough, the social costs of
destructive in terms of lost oil
the war were even most dramatic.
revenues, declining GNPs, material
destruction, and human lives. About
1.2 million lives were lost; another
2.2 million were wounded. Up to
1.5 million people were displaced.
About 1,800 border villages were
wiped off the map. At least 157
Iranian towns with populations or
more than 5,000 were damaged or
wholly destroyed. Estimates of the
direct and indirect costs of the war
for both countries totaled $1.19
trillion: $627 billion for Iran and
$561 billion for Iraq. While these
quantifiable measures of destruction
Iran-Iraq War (Animation of Batttlefronts)
Thom Workman, a leading expert on the Iran-Iraq War, concludes, “The
Iran-Iraq War profoundly affected the balance of social forces in both
countries by eroding the social power of oppressed groups and classes and
working exclusively to the advantage of the ruling regimes. These social
costs are the greatest legacy of the Iran-Iraq War; its lingering social effects
will be felt for many years to come.”
The socio-economic transformations of the 20th Century set in motion
distinct social and political struggles that culminated in three crucial
political dimensions leading to the outbreak of war: (1) the inflamed
Islamic rhetoric emanating from Iran in the aftermath of the revolution;
(2) the alarmed Ba’thi response in the face of a perceived Shi’i uprising in
Iraq; and, (3) the Iraqi Ba’th attempts to secure and stabilize oil export
revenues. In other words, the broad socio-economic transformations in
Iran and Iraq throughout the 20th Century created class and communal
struggles because of the structural disjunctures between the political and
socio-economic spheres, which created political aspirations that exposed
political vulnerabilities that impelled both regimes to commit to a
protracted war.
 Dubious explanations for the
cause of the Iran-Iraq War include:
 (1) the deeply rooted cultural
enmity between Iran and Iraq
in racial (Aryan and Semite),
sectarian (Shi’i and Sunni),
ethnic (Arab and Persian), or
religious (secular and
fundamentalist) terms;
 (2) the megalomaniacal
tendencies of Saddam Hussein;
 (3) the declining Iranian
hegemony in the Gulf region
after the revolution, which
created a power vacuum
affording the Ba’th regime in
Iraq an opportunity to extend
its regional influence and to
enhance its Arab stature;
 (4) Iran’s inflammatory Shi’i
rhetoric was fuelling
revolutionary sentiments
among the Shi’i population in
Iraq; and,
 (5)the territorial disputes
between the two states arising
from the Shatt al-Arab
waterway, whether to establish
the eastern shoreline as the
boundary or to apply the midchannel (thalweg) principle.
 These explanations fail to
consider the complex social
dynamics at work within each
country.
Internal Shi’i unrest and
vulnerability to fluctuating oil
prices motivated Hussein to attack
Iran. Hussein saw an opportunity
for a quick victory because the
Iranian military was in disarray
after the Islamic revolution. Border
skirmishes between Iran and Iraq
escalated throughout the summer of
1980, culminating in a full-scale
invasion of Iran on 22 September.
Within three months, the Iraqis
advanced 20 miles into Iran along
the entire front, but, six months
into the conflict, Iranian counteroffenses began to push the Iraqis
back. Two years into the conflict,
the Iranians advanced into Iraqi
territory. By the third year, the
conflict had become a deadlocked
war of attrition with no end in
sight. Attacks on oil tankers and
mutual missile strikes did not break
the deadlock. Notoriously, the war
included human wave attacks and
the use of chemical weapons.
Hussein Inspects Iraqi Position
Soldiers in Trenches on the Iran-Iraq Border
Attempts by Algeria, the Islamic
Conference Organization, the UN,
the Organization of Non-Aligned
Countries, and the Warsaw Pact to
negotiate an end to the war failed.
Both Iranian and Iraqi leaders did
not want to end the war because it
helped maintain domestic political
control. The war helped the clerics
of Iran consolidate their power,
and, while Iraq did publicly try to
end the war, its continuation
provided political advantages for
Hussein. The USA, supplying aid to
both combatants, did not want the
war to end because, by weakening
Iran and Iraq, it strengthened US
power in the Persian Gulf.
Victims of Chemical Weapons in Halabja, Iraq
(Sayeed Janbozorgi, 16 March 1988)
After the Islamic revolution in Iran, the ‘ulama
split into two factions: the line of the Imam
faction promoted a radical platform appealing to
the population as a whole while the conservative
Hojjatiyeh faction maintained its ties with the
traditional petty bourgeoisie and other propertied
interests.
Mahmoud Halabi
The factions fought over issues such as the
(Founder of Hojjatiyeh)
nationalization of foreign trade. The more
conservative faction prevailed, and it sought political and social themes
capable of transcending class and group consciousness. Without meeting
their grievances, the regime needed to win the support of the peasants,
working class, women and the urban poor.
Ervand Abrahamian: “The [Iranian] clergy were unlikely to find another
public enemy as unpopular as the Shah against whom they could rally the
whole population—unless, of course, a foreign enemy invaded the country
and threatened the existence of the nation.”
The Iranian clerics exploited the
war to establish their class
hegemony. Iraq became the
axiomatic common enemy, the
brutal, “Great Satan,” confirming
the fears of the populist Islamists.
Xenophobic and Islamic themes
were utilized to politically mobilize
and to secure the support of the
Iranian people for the regime,
cementing the fractured Iranian
society. The defense of Islam, by
implication, became the defense of
the theocratic regime.
The Iranian ‘ulama used the war
to legitimize the thorough and
brutal repression of four
oppositional forces: the secularists,
the leftists, the regionalist/nationals
(Arabs, Azerbaijani Turks, Qashqa’i
Turks, Turkomanis, and Kurds), and
women.
By late 1981, opposition was
destroyed in Iran, the oppositional
political parties going into exile.
Iranian Woman Sends a Soldier to the Front
In exile, Bani-Sadr, the liberal first
president of the Islamic Republic of
Iran (February 1980 to June 1981),
the National Democratic Front, the
Kurdish Democratic Party, and the
Mujahidin established the Council of
National Resistance in Paris.
Khomeini and Bani-Sadr (1979)
Pro-Socialist Demonstration (1979)
By 1983, Iranian left-wing parties
that had cooperated with the regime,
such as the Tudeh, were wiped out, as
the anti-communist Hojjatiyeh
faction gained control of the regime.
During the war, the Iranian
military attacked the Peshmergas
as brutally as it did the Iraqis. The 2.5
million Iranian Kurds (10 percent of
Iran’s population) were detained,
resettled, or massacred.
As the clerics desecularized Iranian
society, oppressive conceptions of
gender were reinforced. Women were
encouraged to restrict themselves to
bearing and rearing “alert” children
and were forced to observe the hejab.
Peshmergas with Captured Tank (1991)
Armed Women in Tehran (1979)
The Iranian ‘ulama feared the Iranian
army, which had a close relationship
with Bani-Sadr. While the army was
prosecuting the war, the clerics
established the Ministry of
Revolutionary Guards, transforming
the Pasdaran into a permanent
counterbalance to the army. The clerics
also recruited young volunteers into a
new paramilitary security apparatus,
the Basijis (Mobilization of the
Oppressed).
Four different security groups
policed the army, bringing it under
clerical control. Additionally, by
recruiting the young, urban poor and
lower middle classes into the state
security apparatus, the regime
secured support. The Jahad-e
Sazandeghi (Reconstruction Crusade)
Young Pasdaran (Revolutionary Guard) Soldier organized rural support for the
Iranian regime, while the Shura
(Council of Guardians), a clerical body, assumed the power to veto
parliamentary legislations.
The Iranian ‘ulama used the war as a pretext for purging the state
bureaucracy and the mass media and for desecularizing Iranian society.
The education system was reformed, including textbook revisions and the
removal of teachers and students not sufficiently Islamic. Criminal, civil,
and commercial statutes were re-written under the supervision of Shi’i
jurists. In 1982, all secular laws were deemed null and void.
The Iranian ‘ulama used the war
as a pretext for the repression of any
disruptive social action. The
working class was suppressed. Labor
sections were established within the
Pasdaran and the Basijis. The shura
(councils) of the workers were
replaced with Islamic associations,
which established maktabi (Islamic)
management. The clerical regime
proclaimed work as a religious duty.
Khomeini told cement workers in
Tehran, “To work itself is a jihad
(crusade) for the sake of God; God
will pay for this jihad—the jihad of
labor which you [workers] are
carrying out inside the barricade of
the factory.”
Thus, the Iran-Iraq War brought
certain advantage to the clerics, and
the Iranian ruling class resisted
efforts to end the war.
Aftermath of the Battle of al-Faw (March 1986)
In Iraq, Hussein was concerned by
military setbacks and by the
curtailing of Iraqi oil exports.
Iranian attacks on Iraq’s southern
port facilities and the closure of the
Syrian pipeline caused a drastic
decline in oil revenue, but Hussein
exported oil overland by truck to
Jordan and opened a pipeline in
1985 to Saudi Arabia. He also
received large quantities of cash,
credit, and oil exchanges from Saudi
Arabia and Kuwait.
By the end of 1982, Hussein was
prepared to negotiate an end to the
war. To pressure Iran to negotiate,
he attempted to internationalize the
war, especially through tanker
attacks. Contradictory pressures on
Hussein, however, encouraged him
to continue the war for another six
years. As was the case in Iran, the
war provided a pretext for the
continuing repressive politics of
Iraq’s Ba’th regime.
The Tanker War
During the Iran-Iraq War, the
Ba’th regime repressed labor and
oppressed women. The labor code
was rescinded; the federation of
trade unions was abolished. A
million Egyptian migrant laborers
were brought into Iraq to provide
the need for cheap labor and to
keep labor disturbances to a
minimum. Baghdad was plastered
with anti-contraception posters
exhorting mothers to breed for their
country.
Hussein used the war as a pretext
to launch an extensive counterinsurgency campaign against Iraqi
Kurds, including a massive
relocation program, the
establishment of sanitation zones
along the Turkish and Iranian
borders, and the use of chemical
weapons.
When the Iranians moved the
front into Iraqi territory, Hussein
fully exploited his position as
defender of the Arab nation.
Bombed-out shops in Basra were
strewn with posters hailing Hussein
as “the second great conqueror of
the Persian Army.” The “Iraqi man”
became the national symbol,
transcending any class, religious, or
ethnic fractures of Iraqi society.
Hussein played up the Arab/Persian
dimension to the war.
Importantly, the war allowed Hussein
to embed a populist image of the Ba’th
regime in social consciousness.
Iranian Soldier Wearing Gas Mask
The Iran-Iraq War caused the
underground opposition movement in
Iraq to fragment, especially among the
Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, the
Kurdish Democratic Party, and the Iraqi
Communist Party. This fragmentation
strengthened the Ba’th regime.
Hussein insulated the bourgeoisie from the negative effects of the war.
Private sector expansion in Iraq continued unabated during the war. The
Iraqi ruling class, seeing only the advantages of the war, made little effort
to end the war. Moreover, a ceasefire was seen as a serious disadvantage:
“After a ceasefire, Saddam Hussein would no longer be able to claim he
was defending the homeland or to use the war as a justification and
smokescreen for mass repression and terror in Iraq.”
The benefits of the Iran-Iraq War
accrued almost exclusively to the
regimes exercising power, which
were able to extend oppressive
relations in both countries. The
social power of subordinate classes
and groups—especially the urban
poor, the Kurds, the working classes
and women—slipped appreciably.
By 1988, the ‘ulama of Iran had
consolidated their power and faced
no internal threat, although they
still faced economic challenges,
which included staggering
unemployment, deplorable urban
living conditions, and a stagnant
economy. US involvement was also
raising the stakes of the war.
Additionally, in 1986, the price of a
barrel of oil fell from $28 US to $10
US, only recovering to $18 US in
1988, placing great strain on both
Iran and Iraq.
Iraqi Mirage F1-EQ Pilots Prepare for a Mission
By 1988, Iran was ready to
countries on 20 August 1988, but no
negotiate with Iraq, but, in 1988,
permanent official peace was
Hussein was less inclined to
established between Iran and Iraq.
negotiate than he had been in 1982.
New Iraqi offenses had pushed the
front back into Iranian territory.
Iran unilaterally accepted UN
Security Council Resolution 598,
requiring an immediate ceasefire, a
UN observer force, a release of
prisoners of war, and the
establishment of an impartial body
to assess war responsibility.
Reluctantly, Hussein accepted
Resolution 598 as a basic framework
for peace, and the United Nations
Iran-Iraq Military Observer Group
(UNIIMOG) occupied the 1,170kilometer border between the
UN Weapons Inspectors (1988)
After the UN ceasefire, Iraq continued to occupy 1,600 square kilometers
of Iranian territory. The disagreement over the Shatt al-Arab remained
unresolved. The exchange of nearly 100,000 prisoners of war was delayed.
After the Iraq-Kuwait War (the First Gulf War) (2 August 1990 to 28
February 1991), Hussein negotiated an uneasy peace with Iranian
President Hashemi Rafsanjani. Iraq recognized Iranian sovereignty over
the
eastern half of the
Shatt al-Arab. Iraq
withdrew its
military from Iran.
And most of the
prisoners of war
were released,
although final
prisoner exchanges
did not take place
until 2003.
Battlefield of the Iran-Iraq War
US Involvement in the Iran-Iraq War
After the fall of the Shah, US
National Security Advisor Zbigniew
Brzezinski argued, “Iraq was poised
to succeed Iran as the principal
pillar of stability in the Persian
Gulf” and the USA could use Iraq to
destabilize Iran. Iranian President
Bani-Sadr claimed to possess
intelligence on a Paris meeting of
US and Israeli military experts,
Iranian exiles, and Iraqis to plan an
attack on Iran.
In July 1980, Brzezinski and three
CIA agents met Saddam Hussein in
Amman, Jordan to discuss “Iran’s
reckless policy” and to assure
Hussein that the USA “would not
oppose the separation of Khuzestan
from Iran.” The USA convinced
Hussein that the Iranian military
was in disarray because shipments
of spare parts for its American-made
weapons were frozen and the Shah’s
officer corps had been purged.
Zbigniew Brzezinski and Jimmy Carter
In August 1980, Hussein traveled to Saudi Arabia to meet with Prince
Fahd, who was acting as an intermediary for US President Carter. Carter’s
chief National Security Council aide on Iran, Gary Sick, stated that Prince
Fahd allowed Hussein to “assume there was a US green light because there
was no explicit red light.” US Secretary of State Al Haig, however, stated,
“Carter gave the Iraqis a green light to launch the war against Iran through
Fahd.”
On 28 September 1980, the UN called for a ceasefire and for mediation of
the conflict. The Western powers, however, were not outraged, did not
impose punitive sanctions, and did not deploy troops to defend Iran. In
short, the Western powers found Iraq’s aggression useful.
Gary Sick
Al Haig
Fahd bin Abdulaziz Al Saud
On 18 October 1980, Carter
informed Iran that the USA would
provide military assistance to Iran
in exchange for the release of the
hostages held in the US Embassy in
Tehran. Presidential candidate
Ronald Reagan, however, had
already negotiated a secret
New York Times (21 January 1981)
agreement with Iran not to release
the hostages until after the US
presidential election in November
in exchange for hundreds of
millions of dollars in arms to be
shipped to Iran from Israel.
Reagan’s maneuver made a quick
diplomatic solution to the war
impossible.
For two years, the Western
powers did little to stop the war. A
US State Department official said,
“We don’t give a damn as long as
the Iran-Iraq carnage does not affect
our allies or alter the balance of
power.” But when Iran advanced
into Iraqi territory, Western powers
started to give a damn.
In June 1982, President Reagan
in US military hardware to Iraq
pledged the USA to doing whatever and loaned Iraq $60 billion.
was necessary and legal to prevent
In 1983, the USA launched
Iraq from losing the war with Iran.
“Operation Staunch” to block the
The USA gave Iraq some $5 billion
flow of arms to Iran, and in 1984,
in economic aid and encouraged the the USA placed Iran on the State
Western powers to provide billions Department list of states that
of dollars worth of arms to Iraq. The sponsor terrorism, after having
British sold Iraq tanks, missile parts, removed Iraq from the list in 1982.
and artillery; the French provided
howitzers,
Exocet missiles, and Mirage
jet fighters; and the Germans
supplied technology used in
Iraqi plants that reportedly
produced nerve and mustard
gas. Saudi Arabia and Kuwait
transferred millions of dollars
Ronald Reagan and Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz
(26 November 1984)
CIA Director William Casey
arranged for a Chilean arms
manufacturer to provide Iraq with
anti-personnel cluster bombs to be
used against Iran’s human waves of
attackers.
US firms supplied Iraq with
biological weapons, including 70
shipments over 3 years of anthrax,
botulism, and E. coli bacillus.
The Western powers armed Iraq
with the tools for making chemical
weapons. Chemicals, equipment for
making chemical weapons, and
artillery shells for delivering
chemical weapons came from
Singapore, the Netherlands, Egypt,
India, Germany, France, Austria,
Italy, Spain, the United States, the
United Kingdom, and Switzerland.
A US State Department report
cited Iraq’s “almost daily use of CW
[chemical weapons]” in 1983.
The UN did not condemn the
Western powers for facilitating and
supporting Iraq’s chemical warfare.
William Casey
While Churchill had advocated
the use of poison gas to put down
the Arab revolt in 1920, the US
Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA)
did not object to Hussein’s use of
poison gas. A DIA officer admitted
the Pentagon “wasn’t so horrified
by Iraq’s use of gas. It was just
another way of killing people—
whether with a bullet or phosgene,
it didn’t make any difference.”
The New York Times reported in
August 2002 that over 60 DIA
officers “secretly provided [Iraq]
detailed information on Iranian
deployments, tactical planning for
battles, plans for airstrikes, and
bomb-damage assessments....”
In December 1983 and in March
1984, Reagan sent Donald Rumsfeld
as a special Middle East envoy to
Baghdad. Diplomatic relations
between the USA and Iraq were
renewed in November 1984. The US
then supplied Iraq with $4 billion in
US government-guaranteed
agricultural credits.
Rumsfeld and Hussein
(20 December 1983)
In May 1985, Graham Fuller, the
CIA’s National Intelligence Officer
for Near East and South Asia,
recommended a shift in US policy
away from Iraq and toward Iran.
Fuller made this recommendation
because Iran was considered a
bigger prize than Iraq. Fuller wrote,
“Our tilt to Iraq was timely when
Iraq was against the ropes and the
Islamic revolution was on a roll.
The time may now have to come to
tilt back.”
In a secret arms-for-hostages deal,
Reagan sold arms to Iran in return
for the release of US hostages held
in Lebanon. Reagan then used the
money from the sale of the weapons
to fund counter-revolution in
Nicaragua, support expressly
prohibited by the US Congress.
Beginning in the fall of 1985, the
USA began shipping TOW anti-tank
missiles, Hawk missile parts, and
Hawk radars to Iran, first via Israel,
and beginning in early 1986 directly
to Tehran.
Graham Fuller
US military assistance allowed
Iran to win a victory in the Battle of
al-Faw (March 1986). In fact, the
USA had provided Iraq with false
intelligence to assist the Iranians in
taking al-Faw.
The USA began supplying both
Iran and Iraq with altered satellite
photographs, providing misleading
military intelligence, and lying to
both sides because Reagan would
not allow either to win the war.
A New York Times editorial: “In
Henry Kissinger’s apt phrase, the
ultimate American interest in the
war between Iran and Iraq is that
both should lose. The underlying
hope is that mutual exhaustion
might rid the Middle East of the
aggressive regimes of both
Ayatollah Khomeini and Saddam
Hussein….”
After the Iran-Contra scandal
broke in November 1986, US policy
tilted back in favor of Iraq. The
USA deployed 42 combat ships to
the Persian Gulf, ostensibly to
protect Kuwaiti tankers, which had
been re-registered as American
ships, from Iranian attacks. The
primary goal, however, was to end
the war. The US Navy began direct
engaging Iranian forces, and France
poured weapons into Iraq. In 1988,
the USA helped Iraq claim victory
in the Second Battle of al-Faw.
The USS Vincennes, on 2 July
1988, shot down an unarmed
Iranian passenger jet—killing all
290 onboard. Iran interpreted the
US action as a signal to halt the war
or face further US attacks. Iran
accepted the UN ceasefire
resolution 16 days after the
downing of Iran Air Flight 655.
Iran-Contra Scandal Editorial Cartoon
Iran Air Flight 655
Funeral of Iran Air 655 Passengers (7 July 1988)
The First Persian Gulf War (1990-1991)
Miscalculations by Iraq’s Saddam
Hussein and the USA’s President
George H. W. Bush were followed
by an imperialist war against Iraq
that has continued in various guises
to this day (2014) and is ongoing.
Islands, located at the head of the
Persian Gulf between the two
Iraq emerged from the Iran-Iraq
countries. Moreover, Saudi Arabia
War a de facto ally of the USA but
and Kuwait, US clients that relied
in financial difficulty. Its $36 billion entirely on US support for the
in reserves before the war had
maintenance of their highly
become $90 billion in debt. And
unpopular monarchies, refused to
Basra, Iraq’s gateway to the Persian forgive Iraq’s billions in debt.
Gulf, had been heavily damaged,
Additionally, the United Arab
forcing Iraq to rely on pipelines
Emirates (UAE) and Kuwait were
running through Saudi Arabia and
exceeding their OPEC oil
Turkey. The financial crisis
production quota by 30 and 40
threatened the political stability of
percent respectively, driving crude
the Ba’th regime. Anti-Ba’th graffiti prices down to $12 a barrel and
appeared in Baghdad despite being
costing Iraq $14 billion in lost
punishable by death.
revenues. Iraq believed Kuwait was
slant drilling into the Iraqi portion
Kuwait rejected an Iraqi request
of the Rumalia oil field as well.
to lease the Warbah and Bubiyan
Why did Iraq invade Kuwait?
Hussein was also concerned about
the implications for the Middle East
of the collapsing USSR. In June
1990, he told the Wall Street
Journal, “It is now clear that the US
can exert influence over the Soviets
and make them abandon any
position contrary to the
USA. So, America thinks it
can cast things anyway it
wants in the region and in
alliance with Israel can
suppress any voice in support
of Arab rights.”
In 1981, Israel had bombed
the Osiraq nuclear reactor
near Baghdad; in 1990, Israel
was harshly repressing the
intifada of the Palestinian people,
while expanding settlements of Jews
in the West Bank. To meet the
Israeli threat, Hussein began a
nuclear weapons program and tried
to develop a “supergun” to fire
chemical or biological shells that
could hit Israel.
Osiraq Nuclear Reactor Ruins (2002)
The Kuwaiti regime was led by
the despotic and decadent emirs of
the Sabah family. Only 3.5 percent
of the population—literate male
citizens over the age of 21—were
allowed to vote. Kuwaiti women
were relegated to inferior, secondclass status. Nearly two-thirds of
Kuwait’s population of 1.9 million
were non-citizens who performed
80 percent of the labor.
Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah and George H. W. Bush
Hussein justified the invasion of
Kuwait as a blow against the legacy
Invading Kuwait would solve
of British colonialism: “The
Hussein’s problems. Iraq’s debts to
foreigner entered their [Arab] lands,
Kuwait would be cancelled, Iraq
and Western colonialism divided
would have deep-water access to
and established weak states ruled by
the Persian Gulf, and Iraq would
families that offered him [the
control some 20 percent of world oil British] services that facilitated his
reserves.
mission….
The colonialists, to insure their
petroleum interests…set up those
disfigured petroleum states.
Through this, they kept the wealth
away from the masses of this
nation.” Before invading Kuwait,
however, Hussein sought a green
light from the USA, as he had done
before invading Iran ten years
earlier.
On 25 July 1990, Hussein met
with US Ambassador April Glaspie.
Hussein told Glaspie that Iraq had
forgiven the USA for its Iran-Contra
treachery. Iraq understood that the
USA needed an easy flow of oil. He
reminded her that Iraq was giving
the USA a $1 discount per barrel of
oil. He complained that the USA
favored the rights of 3 million
Israeli Jews over those of 200
million Arabs. Then, Hussein
announced his military intentions:
“When planned and deliberate
policy forces the price of oil down
without good commercial reasons,
then that means another war
against Iraq….
Edward Gnehm, April Glaspie, and John Kelly
Meet with Saddam Hussein (February 1990)
Because military war kills people by
bleeding them and economic war
kills their humanity by depriving
them of the chance to have a good
standard of living…. Iraq has the
right to defend itself…. We know
that the USA has nuclear weapons.
But we are determined either to live
as proud men, or we all die.”
Glaspie responded by telling
Hussein that fighting for one’s
interests is legitimate, that he could
be assured of overall US support,
and that the USA would stay out of
Iraq’s border dispute with Kuwait:
“I clearly understand your message.
We studied history at school. They
taught us to say freedom or death….
I have a direct instruction from the
President to seek better relations
with Iraq…. We have no opinion
on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like
your border disagreement with
Kuwait…. We hope you can solve
the problem using any suitable
methods….”
April Glaspie Testifying before Congress (1991)
The USA sent mixed signals to Iraq. Defense Secretary
Dick Cheney said the USA was committed to defending
Kuwait if attacked and to “supporting the individual and
collective self-defense of our friends in the Gulf.”
Dick Cheney
But Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern and
South Asian Affairs John Kelly told Congress, “We have
no defense treaty relationship with any Gulf country.
That is clear…. We have not historically taken a position
on border disputes.”
Bush sent Hussein a secret, conciliatory message: “We
believe that differences are best resolved by peaceful
means and not by threats involving military force or
conflict. My Administration continues to desire better
relations with Iraq.”
John Kelly
On 28 July 1990, the CIA informed Bush that an
invasion of Kuwait was imminent, but Iraq would
probably only take the disputed Rumaila oil field and the
Warbah and Buybian Islands.
The mixed signals represented confusion or conflicting views within the
US government, yet overall, the US had signaled its willingness to tolerate
limited Iraqi military action. The right-wing Washington Institute for
Near East Policy concluded, “It is unlikely that Saddam Hussein would
have invaded Kuwait had he not calculated both that the regional balance
of power stood in his favor and that local and outside powers would not
act vigorously.”
Iraqi dissident Sami Yousif wrote, “My contention is that the US
administration encouraged Hussein’s new criminal adventure because it
suited US interests to do so. Simultaneously, the administration was
backing and encouraging Kuwait to resist
Iraqi demands. Hussein was the perfect
bogeyman.”
Former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark
wrote, “The US government used the Kuwait
royal family to provoke an Iraqi invasion that
would justify a massive assault on Iraq to
establish US dominion in the Gulf.”
Ramsey Clark and Saddam Hussein
On 2 August 1990, six elite Iraqi
Republican Guard divisions entered
Kuwait. They entered the capital of
Kuwait City four hours later,
effectively taking over the whole
country. The Washington Post
noted, “By seizing the entire
country, Hussein thought he would
have Kuwait under his thumb and
could force its rulers to agree to
cede the northern area.” Glaspie
told the New York Times,
“Obviously, I didn’t think, and
nobody else did, that the Iraqis
were going to take all of Kuwait.”
The day after its invasion, Iraq
offered to withdraw and to
negotiate a peaceful settlement
brokered by Arab leaders.
How did the USA respond?
Saddam Hussein’s occupation of
the entirety of Kuwait stunned the
Bush administration. When the
National Security Council met to
discuss the invasion, a participant
reportedly said, “Hey, too bad about
Kuwait, but it’s just a gas station,
and who cares whether the sign
says Sinclair or Exxon?”
National Security Advisor Brent
Scowcroft, groomed by Henry
Kissinger, described the NSC
meeting: “I was frankly appalled at
the undertone of the discussion,
which suggested resignation to the
invasion and even adaptation to a
fait accompli….
There was a huge gap between those
who saw what was happening as the
major crisis of our time and those
who treated it as the crisis du jour.
The remarks tended to skip over the
enormous stake the United States
had in the situation, or the
ramifications of the aggression on
the emerging post- Cold War world.”
Henry Kissinger and Brent Scowcroft during Last
Official Battle of the Vietnam War (14 May 1975)
On 3 August 1990, Scowcroft
met privately with Bush, and they
decided on a two-track policy: the
public theater of diplomacy and
the secret preparations for war,
not to liberate Kuwait but to crush
Iraq.
Propaganda Film Produced by the
Scowcroft Institute of International Affairs
Celebrating the Twentieth Anniversary
of the First Persian Gulf War (2011)
The “Gang of Eight,” President
Bush, Vice President Dan Quayle,
National Security Advisor Brent
Scowcroft, Secretary of Defense
Dick Cheney, Chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell,
Secretary of State James Baker,
Deputy National Security Advisor
Bob Gates, and White House Chief
of Staff John Sununu, could
not allow Iraq to withdraw
from Kuwait with its military
intact. They had to prevent Hussein
from exerting greater
influence over Saudi Arabia
and the Gulf emirates, from
eroding US hegemony, from
bolstering Iraqi strength.
The Bush administration were
determined to break out of the
“Vietnam Syndrome”—the
difficulty in mustering domestic
political support for foreign military
interventions in the wake of US
defeat in Vietnam.
The “Gang of Eight” (1991)
During the Cold War, the USA relied on Saudi Arabia’s oil and its spare
capacity as effective weapons—as important as nuclear weapons—for
leveraging world energy markets and for weakening rivals who depended
on oil revenues or who imported petroleum. Additionally, the recycling of
Saudi Arabia’s “petrodollars,”—Saudi purchases of goods from Western
companies and Saudi investments in the West—helped keep the US dollar
stable and helped enable the US to run huge trade deficits. Iraq’s invasion
of Kuwait and its calls to invest petrodollars in Arab countries—rather
than in the West—imperiled the US-led capitalist financial system.
The Bush administration could not pass up the opportunity, with the
USSR in crisis, to shift the balance of power in favor of US imperialism,
particularly in the strategically important Middle East.
On the one hand, the Gang of Eight were concerned that the Soviet
collapse, as Deputy Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger put it, could
trigger “violent centrifugal tendencies,” like Iraq’s invasion, since smaller
states were no longer “worried about the involvement of the superpowers.”
On the other hand, they were
aware that the US had been handed
a rare opportunity to extend its
imperial reach and control.
Crushing Iraq would serve note to
the world that the USA “henceforth
would be obligated to lead the
world community to an
unprecedented degree.”
Bush’s objectives demanded war,
not peace. The problem for the USA
was how to prevent the resolution
of the crisis short of war yet appear
willing to go, as Bush said, “the
extra mile to achieve a peaceful
solution.” Scowcroft privately said,
“The question of how we would
initiate the use of force…remained.
How could we act without it
appearing as aggression…?”
Bush secretly made the decision
to go to war on 3 August. “We have
to have a war,” Bush told his top
advisors. Bob Woodward, of
theWashington
Post, wrote,
“Scowcroft was
aware that this
understanding
could never be
stated publicly
or be permitted
to leak out.”
Bob Woodward’s
The Commanders (1991)
When Air Force Chief of Staff General Michael Dugan let slip in
September 1990 Bush’s intentions to launch a massive bombing campaign
against Iraqi cities, which would target the country’s leadership and
civilian infrastructure, Cheney fired him. And when Secretary of State
Baker issued a joint statement with Soviet Foreign Minister Alexander
Bessmertnykh on 30 January 1991 calling for a ceasefire provided Iraq
agreed to leave Kuwait, Bush became angrier than Scowcroft had ever seen
him.
Only years later did Scowcroft acknowledge the truth: “…a ground
campaign would be necessary no matter what air power accomplished
because it was essential that we destroy Iraq’s offensive capability. This
was also a major objective, although it had not been feasible to list it
openly as such while a peaceful solution to the crisis was possible.”
Behind the scenes, the USA prepared for war and sabotaged peace
efforts; publicly, the USA demonized Hussein while pretending to
negotiate. On 11 September 1990, Bush arrogantly proclaimed the
beginning of a “new world order,” which really meant preserving much of
the existing—and old—world order with the US more firmly on top.
How did the USA sabotage peace?
thousands of US troops in Saudi
Arabia—Operation Desert Shield.
Between Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait
and the end of the First Persian Gulf
War, the USA rejected at least 11
peace proposals from a variety of
countries, including Iraq, the USSR,
Jordan, Libya, France, Morocco, and
Iran.
When Jordan and Saudi Arabia
reached a tentative peace agreement
with Iraq that would have ceded a
small piece of Kuwait, Cheney went
to Saudi Arabia with false
intelligence (faked satellite
photographs) to persuade the Saudis
not to implement the peace plan but
to invite the USA to station tens of
Dick Cheney meets with Prince Sultan, Minister of
Defense and Aviation, in Saudi Arabia
(1 December 1990)
A number of peace proposals
linked Iraq’s withdrawal from
Kuwait with negotiations over
Israel’s withdrawal from the West
Bank and Gaza and called for the
banning of all weapons of mass
destruction in the Middle East,
including Israel’s 200-plus nuclear
warheads. The USA rejected any
such linkage. As Scowcroft put it, it
would change the US “path” and
possibly give Hussein a “political
victory.”
Hussein contributed to US war
plans by continuing to make
miscalculations. On 8 August, he
annexed Kuwait, the first
annexation of a sovereign state since
WWII, inviting comparisons with
Hitler. He also held thousands of
US, British, and other foreigners as
human shields against a US attack
until he realized the tactic was
backfiring politically and began
releasing them in late August.
Saddam Hussein and 5-Year-Old British Human
Shield Stuart Lockwood
How was Hussein demonized?
The Bush team faced the difficulty
of rallying the world behind their
imperial agenda. After the war,
Scowcroft described how they
deliberately added various
justifications for the attack in hopes
of convincing the public to back the
war: “The core of our argument
rested on long-held security and
economic interests: preserving the
balance of power in the Gulf,
opposing unprovoked international
aggression, and ensuring that no
hostile regional power could hold
hostage much of the world’s oil
supply. President Bush…added the
Hitler, holocaust, and morality
arguments, and Baker expanded the
grounds to include American jobs.”
By absurdly comparing Hussein
and Hitler, Bush craftily invoked
the theme of appeasement at
Munich, conveying the idea that
negotiation would only bring
disaster.
Dick Cheney meets with Prince Sultan, Minister of
Defense and Aviation, in Saudi Arabia
(1 December 1990)
US leaders expressed shock over
Hussein’s long history of brutality
against the Iraqi people and the
Iranians, failing to mention how the
USA had enabled Hussein to carry
out those atrocities.
While the history of Hussein’s
brutality was bad enough, US
leaders felt the need to hire public
relations firm Hill & Knowlton
(paid for by the Sabah family) to
fabricate an even worse crime. In
October 1990, the daughter of
Kuwait’s ambassador to the USA
pretended to be a 15-year-old
woman identified only as Nayirah.
She testified before Congress that
Iraqi soldiers in Kuwait “took the
babies out of the incubators, took
the incubators and left the babies to
die on the cold floor.” The story was
a complete fabrication, but Bush
used the story to manipulate the
public, while mainstream media
coverage reinforced the lie.
Nayirah al-Sabah Giving False Testimony
to Congress (10 October 1990)
USA, Britain, France, the Soviet
Union, and China, the Security
The USA viewed the UN Security Council represented the will of the
Council as its primary vehicle for
imperialist powers, the USA being
giving Operation Desert Storm—the dominant. These powers held a
US assault on Iraq—a veil of
shared interest in suppressing an
legitimacy. As Scowcroft put it,
upstart Third World country and in
“Building an international response maintaining Western control of
led us immediately to the United
Persian Gulf oil.
Nations, which could provide a
cloak of acceptability to our efforts
and mobilize world opinion behind
the principles we wished to
project.”
How did the USA use the UN?
The UN Security Council,
however, did not represent the will
of the world’s people. Dominated by
its five permanent members—the
Bush Addresses UN on Gulf War
While France and Germany had
long-standing ties to Iraq and did
not wish to see Iraq crippled or
Hussein overthrown, the USA told
its allies it would attack with or
without their cooperation, so if they
wanted a voice in post-war
decisions in the Gulf, they had to
join the US-led coalition.
Bush cobbled together a coalition
of 28 countries from 6 continents;
the USA, however, would not be
encumbered by the desires of its
coalition partners, international
law, or even UN resolutions. When
any of these stood in the way of US
objectives, Bush simply ignored
them.
The USA bribed Egypt to join the
coalition by forgiving billions of
Egypt’s foreign debts. The USA
bullied Jordan into joining the
coalition by threatening to cut off
US aid. When Yemen refused to
join the coalition, the US suspended
its $70 million aid package to
Yemen.
A PSYOPS Pamphlet Dropped on Iraq
At the same time, the USA
received pledges for $50 billion to
cover the costs of the war: $16.8
billion from Saudi Arabia, $16
billion from Kuwait, $10.7 billion
from Japan, and $6.6 billion from
Germany.
The UN Security Council passes
12 resolutions on Iraq’s invasion of
Kuwait, including Resolution 660,
demanding that Iraq “immediately
and unconditionally” withdraw
from Kuwait; Resolution 661, which
imposed a stringent embargo and
economic sanctions; and, Resolution
678, which approved the use of “all
necessary means” to force Iraq from
Kuwait.
Resolution 660 called for
immediate “intensive negotiations
for the resolution of differences….
support[ing] all efforts in this
regard, and especially those of the
League of Arab States” and
subsequent resolutions carried
similar language calling for a
negotiated end to the crisis without
war. The USA refused to negotiate
in good faith.
UN Security Council Votes on Resolution 678
(29 November 1990)
The Red Cross pointed out that
Resolution 661 violated the UN
Charter because the sanctions
blocked food and medicine for Iraqi
civilians. Moreover, Resolution 661
did not authorize the use of military
force to impose the sanctions.
Ignoring both facts, Bush
unilaterally imposed and enforced
the sanctions by force.
Resolution 678 stated that the
Security Council would “remain
seized of the matter,” meaning that
no action could be taken without
further UN authorization, yet the
USA went ahead with its attack on
Iraq without securing the required
UN approval.
The UN resolutions called for Iraq
to leave Kuwait. No UN resolution
called for the destruction of Iraq’s
military and civilian infrastructure,
yet the USA did so anyway.
The UN provided a “cloak of
political cover,” Scowcroft later
wrote. Scowcroft also
acknowledged that the USA was not
bound by the UN: “Never did we
think that without its blessings we
could not or would not intervene.”
Neither Scowcroft nor other US
official spoke so frankly while their
war preparations were unfolding.
On 12 January 1991, the US
Congress voted to give Bush the
authority to use force against Iraq.
On 16 January, Bush spoke publicly
as the US bombing campaign began.
As bombs rained down on Baghdad
and other Iraqi cities, Bush
mentioned the word “peace” 11
times in his speech.
The military tactics of Desert
Storm arose from Bush’s desire to
avoid the Vietnam Syndrome. Bush
believed two factors caused the
Vietnam Syndrome: the deaths of
US troops and the media coverage
of the deaths of US enemies, which
made Americans identify with the
victims of US violence and which
brought out popular revulsion at the
horror and bloodshed of war.
The Bombing of Baghdad (1991)
Anti-War Protest Sign (c. 2008)
What was Desert Storm?
To avoid Vietnam Syndrome, the
Bush administration controlled the
news through high level briefings
run by Powell and Cheney, by
restricting access to the battlefield,
and by feeding the media so-called
“gun camera” footage, which had
been carefully selected by US
generals to present an image of a
clean, surgical war. Reporters in the
official press pool were banned
from the front, and their dispatches
were vetted by the military.
Newsday reporter Patrick Sloyan
said, “More than 70 reporters were
arrested, detained, threatened at
gunpoint and literally chased from
the front lines….”
ABC, CBS, and NBC News, CNN,
the Associated Press, the New York
Times, the Washington Post, the
Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street
Journal, USA Today, and seven
other major news organizations
issued a report concluding that the
Pentagon restrictions constituted
“real censorship.”
US Military Briefing on Smart Bombs (1991)
As part of this censorship, the
USA refused to provide estimates of
either Iraqi civilian or battlefield
casualties. General Norman
Schwarzkopf, leader of coalition
forces in the Gulf War, said, “I’m
never going to get into the body
count business.”
The USA suffered casualties of 79
killed, 212 wounded, and 45
missing, but there are no precise
figures for the tens of thousands of
Iraqi casualties during the war and
the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi
deaths after the war.
The Bush administration dictated
a strategy of overwhelming force,
minimal US casualties, and quick
victory. Bush said, “This will not be
another Vietnam. Our troops will
not be asked to fight with one hand
tied behind their back. I’m hopeful
that this fighting will not go on for
long and that casualties will be held
to an absolute minimum.”
Schwarzkopf said the goal was “to
achieve the absolute minimum
number of casualties on our side.”
General Norman Schwarzkopf (1991)
What Bush and Schwarzkopf did not say was that the strategy, carpetbombing from high altitudes and missile strikes, meant maximizing the
destruction of Iraq and inflicting enormous civilian casualties.
In an unprecedented bombing assault code-named “Instant Thunder,” 46
percent of the US Air Force’s combat planes (joined by British bombers)
were deployed, and for 43 days and nights bombed Iraq with impunity.
Coalition planes flew 109,876 combat sorties, dropping some 250,000
weapons—6,000 a day—the equivalent of 6 Hiroshimas.
The USA claimed it was using “smart” bombs in its air campaign against
Iraq. The Pentagon reported, “Careful targeting and expert use of
technological superiority—including precision guided munitions—
throughout the strategic air campaign minimized collateral damage and
casualties to the civilian population.” But this was a hoax. At least 10
percent of “smart” bombs missed their targets, and only 8 percent of the
munitions used were “smart” bombs. Dropped from up to 35,000 feet, 70
percent of the 92 percent of “dumb” bombs missed their targets, causing
what the Pentagon euphemistically called “collateral damage.” And onethird of all US air attacks were directed at Iraq’s densely populated cities.
Ameed Hamid, Director of Iraq’s
Red Crescent Society, said, “I have a
son 5 years old. During the air raid
he was shaking, shivering, saying
‘Bush is coming; Bush is coming.’
After the ceasefire, American
airplanes were flying over Baghdad,
crossing the sound barrier, making
this explosive sound, frightening
the children and writing with blue
smoke, ‘USA.’ What was the
purpose except frightening Iraqi
children?”
Air Force Lt. General Charles
Horner, who commanded the air
campaign, called psychological
terror a “side benefit” of the air
assault.
Emir of Bahrain Honors Lt. Gen. Charles Horner
The US-led coalition targeted
Iraq’s leadership; command, control
and communication; air defense;
airfields; nuclear, biological and
chemical weapons; Scud missiles;
conventional military production
and storage facilities; naval ports;
and Republic Guard forces.
But they also purposely targeted Iraq’s economic and social
infrastructure—the foundations of Iraq’s civilian life—including the
electrical grid, power system, bridges, and telecommunications network.
This US tactic provided post-war “leverage” by destroying “valuable
facilities that Baghdad could not repair without foreign assistance.”
French journalist and diplomat Eric Rouleau: “Electric power stations
(92% of installed capacity destroyed), refineries (80 percent of production
capacity), petrochemical complexes, telecommunications centers
(including 135 telephone networks), bridges (more
than 100), roads, highways, railroads, hundreds of
locomotives and boxcars full of goods, radio and
television broadcasting stations, cement plants, and
factories producing aluminum, textiles, electric
cables, and medical supplies….”
With Iraqi electrical generation reduced to 1920
levels, the water, sewage, and medical systems
collapsed, leading to a significant number of civilian
deaths, particularly among the young and the elderly.
Eric Rouleau
After the Gulf War, the USA
blocked foreign assistance, causing
hundreds of thousands of Iraqi
civilians to die. An Air Force
planner explained, “We’re not going
to tolerate Saddam Hussein or his
regime. Fix that, and we’ll fix your
electricity.” The USA held the
population of Iraq hostage to its
imperial desire.
The US bombing campaign
constituted a war crime,
contravening Article 54 of the
Geneva Convention, which
prohibits attacks on essential
civilian facilities, including
“drinking water supplies and
irrigation works.”
“Instant Thunder” roused waves
of protest around the world and
frantic efforts in January and
February 1991 to negotiate a
ceasefire in the Gulf War. The
USSR, in particular, was furious that
the USA had gone far beyond the
scope of UN resolutions.
US Air Force F-16A, F-15C, and F-15E Fighter-Bombers
Fly over Burning Kuwaiti Oil Wells (1991)
The USA rejected a Soviet-brokered peace.
Scowcroft said, even if Iraq agreed to US
demands, “it would be a disaster to take ‘yes’
for an answer.” On 15 February, when Iraq
agreed to comply with UN Resolution 660,
Bush privately said, “Instead of feeling
exhilarated, my heart sank….” Publicly,
Bush dismissed Iraq’s offer as a “cruel hoax.”
Mikhail Gorbachev and George Bush
(June 1990)
The USSR informed the USA on 18 February and again on 21 February
that Iraq would withdraw immediately if the USA halted its attacks. On 22
February, the USA rejected Iraq’s offer.
On 23 February, Gorbachev informed Bush that “Saddam had caved” and
would unconditionally withdraw from Kuwait. Bush replied, “It was too
late for that now.”
On 24 February, the US launched a ground war from Saudi Arabia.
Marine and Army units attacked with infantry and armor along several
fronts, retaking Kuwait and moving some 100 miles into southern Iraq to
engage and cut-off retreating Iraqi forces.
On 25 February, the USSR
reiterated Iraq’s desire for a
ceasefire to withdraw from Kuwait.
Bush again rejected the surrender,
allowing the single worst atrocity of
the war on 26 February—the day
Iraq said that it would accept any
terms that the US dictated.
Iraqi forces, many who had
abandoned their weapons, and
many non-combatants from a
variety of countries tried to escape
from Kuwait City to Basra on the
six-lane Highway 80, forming a long
convoy of tanks, personnel carriers,
trucks, buses, and cars. Powell, who
had been involved in the attempted
cover-up of the My Lai massacre,
ordered coalition forces to “cut
them off and kill them.” Air forces
attacked both ends of the convoy,
blocking any escape. Over the next
two days, the “highway of death”
was a free-fire zone for coalition
aircraft and ground forces. One US
soldier said it was like “a medieval
hell.”
The Highway of Death (1991)
who have withdrawn from combat,
and the 1907 Hague Convention,
which required withdrawing forces
to be given quarter. The USA
attempted to impose a media
blackout, but when news of the
Highway 80 massacre broke, the
Bush administration justified its
action, falsely claiming that Iraqi
forces had been engaged in an
“armed” retreat.
Highway of Death Victim (Kenneth Jarecke, 1991)
The massacre of retreating Iraqi
forces and civilians constituted a
war crime, violating both the
Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949,
which prohibited attacks on soldiers
Chairman of
the Joint
Chiefs of Staff
Colin Powell
Bush declared a ceasefire on 27
February 1991, and Iraq accepted
US terms on 3 March, although no
formal peace treaty was signed.
During the 47-days of combat, an
estimated 120,000 Iraqi soldiers
were killed; an estimated 95,000
Iraqi civilians (including Shi’a and
Kurdish rebels, civilians caught in
the crossfire, and civilians who died
from the destruction of water and
power plants) died; and, an
estimated 5,000 Kuwaitis died.
The death toll , however,
continued to mount after the
ceasefire. The war caused massive
oil spills and environmental
destruction, releasing a toxic slew of
chemical agents, pesticides, acid
rain, soot, and smoke from burning
oil wells into the atmosphere. Each
side blamed the other for setting
Kuwait’s oil wells on fire.
Landsat Image of First Persian Gulf War
(NASA/Earth Observatory, 1991)
In the Gulf War, US forces fired 1
million depleted uranium (DU)
rounds—some 320 tons—
generating tens of thousands of tons
of dust and debris that are both
radioactive and toxic. It takes 4.5
billion years for DU to lose half of
its radioactivity. Upon impact,
roughly 70 percent of the depleted
uranium catches fire and oxidizes—
forming clouds of black uranium
oxide particles of various sizes. The
smallest particles, about one
micrometer in size, lodge in the
lungs, emitting alpha particles,
producing tissue prone to become
cancerous. In 1991, Britain’s Atomic
Energy Authority estimated that the
use of DU in the Gulf War had the
potential to cause 4 million cancer
deaths. In the decade after the Gulf
War, cancer rates among Iraqi
children increased five-fold (by 38
percent for all Iraqis). Rates of
leukemia tripled. Birth defects
became six-times more frequent.
Baby with Severe Birth Defects Attributed to DU
Munitions and Other War Toxins in Fallujah
(Samira Alani/Al Jazeera, 2013)
One third of the 700,000 US soldiers who served in the Gulf War
contracted “Gulf War Syndrome” from exposure to the toxic atmosphere
slew and to depleted uranium. Symptoms included chronic fatigue, aching
joints, diarrhea, migraines, dizziness, memory loss, problems with balance
and muscle control, and increased susceptibility to amyotropic lateral
sclerosis.
In the decade after
the Gulf War, 8,306
US veterans died and
159,705 became ill.
Chalmers Johnson
concluded, “In light
of these deaths and
disabilities, the
casualty rate for the
first Gulf War is
actually a staggering
29.3 percent.”
Gulf War Syndrome
(Herbert Block, September 1996)
Gulf War Syndrome Statistics
(2005)
US Gulf War Leaflet (1991)
The USA had encouraged Iraqi Shi’a and Kurds to
revolt against Hussein. The Washington Post
reported that the US bombing campaign was
designed in part to “incite Iraqi citizens to rise
against the Iraqi leader.” The USA dropped 21
million propaganda leaflets that read, “Saddam is the
cause of the war and its sorrows. He must be
stopped. Join with your brothers and demonstrate
rejection of Saddam’s brutal policies. There will be
no peace with Saddam. Rise up, brothers. This is
your time. The American armed forces will help
you. We need your help to change for democracy
and freedom.”
Iraqi Shi’a and Kurds rebelled on 2 March 1991. To the insurgents’
surprise, however, the USA refused to provide them with captured Iraqi
weapons or to support their actions. Instead, Schwarzkopf gave the Iraqi
military permission to fly helicopters as long as they did not approach US
forces, allowing Hussein to put down the rebellion.
While Bush and Scowcroft
desired the Iraqi military to
overthrow Hussein, they would not
countenance a popular, democratic
uprising. They allowed Hussein to
suppress the revolt. For all their
demonization of the Ba’th regime,
they actually wanted to preserve it
as a bulwark of the regional status
quo. Revolution could have led to
the fragmentation of Iraq into three
countries. An independent Kurdish
state in the north would threaten a
US ally, Turkey; an independent
Shi’i state in the south would
strengthen a US enemy, Iran.
Richard Haas, Director for Middle
East Affairs on Bush’s National
Security Council said, “Our policy is
to get rid of Saddam, not his
regime.” Scowcroft said, “It is true
that we hoped Saddam would be
toppled, but we never thought that
could be done by anyone outside
the military….”
An Iraqi Tank Destroyed by Rebels (1991)
The end of the Gulf War did not
bring a halt to US assaults on Iraq.
Rather, it opened a 12-year chapter
of economic strangulation and
military attacks whose main victims
were the Iraqi people, leading to a
Second Gulf War launched by
Bush’s son. And the
US Marines Topple a Statue of Saddam Hussein in
the Second Gulf War (9 April 2003)
placing of US soldiers on Saudi
territory in the First Persian Gulf
War led to the al Qaeda terrorist
attacks on 11 September 2001.
11 September 2001 Terrorist Attacks
Dual Containment in the 1990s
The day the Gulf War ended,
President Bush wrote in his diary,
“It has not been a clean end—there
is no battleship Missouri surrender.
That is what is missing to make this
akin to WWII, to separate Kuwait
from Korea and Vietnam….
Saddam…. He has got to go….”
The aims of the 1991 Persian Gulf
War—crippling Iraq as a regional
power, eliminating Hussein, shoring
up US regional control, and
demonstrating US military might—
continued in the post-war years
under President Bill Clinton via
sanctions, arms inspections, and
military attacks.
The new Persian Gulf strategy
was called “dual containment.”
Rather than having to balance Iran
and Iraq against each other, the
USA directly intervened to weaken
and to control both.
Martin Indyk and Bill Clinton
The USA, after the fall of the USSR, no longer needed to worry about
any Soviet response to American actions. And the Iran-Iraq War and the
Gulf War had created a “regional balance of power…at a much lower level
of [Iranian and Iraqi] military capability” making it easier, as Clinton
National Security Council official Martin Indyk said, “to balance the power
of both of them.”
In 1995, Clinton declared Iran a “rogue state.” On 6 May 1995, Clinton
signed Executive Order 12957 and Executive Order 12959, which banned
almost all trade between the Iranian government and US businesses,
implemented tight
oil and trade
sanctions on Iran,
and made it illegal
for US corporations
to finance the
development of
Iranian petroleum
resources.
USA vs. Iran (1998 World Cup)
At the same time, Clinton took
steps to bring Iran into a closer
relationship with the USA. In 1996,
Clinton agreed to compensate Iran
for the 1988 downing of Iran Air
Flight 655. In 1997, Clinton
apologized for the 1953 coup that
overthrew Mossadeq. And Clinton
actually offered to open up an
official dialogue with the Iranian
government on renewing
diplomatic relations.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei refused
to accept Clinton’s offer for dialogue
unless the US formally withdrew its
support for Israel, lifted the 1995
sanctions, stopped accusing Iran of
attempting to develop nuclear
weaponry, and officially ended its
policy of considering Iran a rogue
state that sponsored terrorism.
Clinton rejected these demands.
Ali Khamenei
Despite failing to initiate an
official diplomatic dialogue with
Iranian President Mohammad
Khatami, Clinton eased restrictions
on the export of food and medical
equipment to Iran. In 2000, Clinton
enabled Americans to purchase and
import carpets and food products,
such as dried fruits, nuts, and caviar,
from Iran.
The dominant influence of the
Israel lobby on US international
relations resulted in repeated and
ongoing calls within the USA for
military strikes against Iran if not
outright war and for UN sanctions
against Iran in regards to its nuclear
program. Iran, refusing to
subordinate itself to the USA during
the Clinton presidency, became a
member of President George W.
Bush’s “Axis of Evil” on 29 January
2002.
Mohammad Khatami
As for Iraq, the USA never
stopped waging its war against
Hussein. The USA interpreted and
implemented UN resolutions on
post-war Iraq. The UN resolutions
left vague exactly what constituted
Iraqi compliance, and the USA
continually moved the “goalposts”
for compliance. If Iraq met some
UN demands, others were added.
When they stood in the way of US
aims, UN resolutions were reinterpreted, selectively enforced, or
simply ignored. No matter what
Iraq did, so long as Hussein
remained in power, the USA kept
the heat on—despite the fact that
no UN resolution authorized
regime change.
The USA and the UK created “no
fly” zones in northern and southern
Iraq. The USA and the UK
maintained a large military presence
around Iraq, averaging over 20,000
troops, 200 planes, and 150 tanks,
which frequently attacked Iraq.
Between 1991 and 2001, American
and British planes flew over 280,000
sorties against Iraq, routinely
bombing military and civilian
targets, killing hundreds of civilians.
In June 1993, Clinton claimed he
had “compelling evidence” that Iraq
planned to assassinate former
President Bush. He launched 23
cruise missiles to punish Iraq:
3 of the cruise missiles missed their
military targets, killing 8 civilians,
including Layla al-Attar, one of
Iraq’s most renowned artists.
Kris Kristofferson’s “The Circle”
Kris Kristofferson’s “The Circle”
Who killed this woman this artist this
mother?
Who broke the candle and snuffed out her
light
Along with her husband and wounded her
children
And sauntered away like a beast in the
night?
“Not I,” said the soldier,
“I just follow orders and it was my duty to
do my job well.”
“Not I,” said the leader who ordered the
slaughter,
“I’m saddened it happened, but then, war is
hell.”
“Not us,” said the others who heard of the
horror,
Turned a cold shoulder on all that was done.
In all the confusion a single conclusion,
The circle of sorrow has only begun.
On 16 December 1998, the USA launched Operation Desert Fox—
without UN Security Council authorization. For the next 100 hours, the
USA lashed Iraq with 415 cruise missiles and 600 laser guided bombs in an
attempt to assassinate Saddam Hussein by targeting locations he
frequented, including the private homes of his mistresses. The air strike
relied on information illegally gathered during UN arms inspections.
Desert Fox Bomb Assessment Photographs (1998)
UN Security Council
Resolution 687 demanded
that Iraq destroy its ballistic
missiles and its chemical,
biological, and nuclear
weapons. Iraq was also
required to destroy its
weapons research,
development, support, and
manufacturing facilities and
to foreswear any future
weapons development.
Iraq’s supposed non-compliance
with UN weapons inspections and
its alleged pursuit of “weapons of
mass destruction” were the primary
rationalization for 12 murderous
years of US aggression.
Iraq did not immediately comply
with Resolution 687. After the Gulf
War, Hussein attempted to preserve
at least the technical infrastructure
for reconstituting Iraq’s weapons
programs, if not the weapons
themselves, through an elaborate
and well-organized concealment
system. Critical materials and
documents were hidden or moved
from place to place. UN inspectors
were denied access to key sites.
Records turned over to UN
inspectors were inaccurate or
incomplete.
Iraq soon began caving in to the
pressure of inspections, military
assaults, and ongoing economic
sanctions. Within 6 months of the
end of the Gulf War, Iraqi weapons
programs were being discovered
and destroyed. In fact, while hiding
its records of weapon design and
engineering details as well as
procurement information, Iraq
destroyed all its unconventional
weapons shortly after the Gulf War.
From 1991 to 1998, the United
Nations Special Commission
(UNSCOM) sent 500 teams to Iraq
staffed by nearly 3,500 inspectors.
These teams examined some 3,400
sites, including 900 formerly secret
military installations, and destroyed
billions of dollars worth of weapons
and equipment. UNSCOM had
regular access to Iraqi factories and
laboratories, used video cameras to
monitor Iraqi industrial and
military sites 24 hours a day, place
chemical sampling devices around
Iraqi labs, monitored the movement
of Iraq’s industrial equipment,
pored over Iraqi documents, and
questioned Iraqi scientists and
technicians.
UNSCOM Weapons Inspectors
In August 1995, General Hussein
Kamel Majid, the head of Iraq’s
unconventional weapons programs
and Saddam Hussein’s son-in-law
defected. Kamel confirmed that
“Iraq destroyed all its chemical and
biological weapons stocks and the
missiles to deliver them.”
Hussein Kamel Majid
Former US Marine and UN weapons inspector Scott
Ritter: “While we were never able to provide 100
percent certainty regarding the disposition of Iraq’s
proscribed weaponry, we did ascertain a 90-95 percent
level of verified disarmament…. If the Security
Council were to reevaluate Iraq’s disarmament
obligations along qualitative lines not quantitative, it
would be very easy to come up with a finding of
compliance.”
The USA refused to recognize Iraqi
compliance because once Iraq complied
with Resolution 687 sanctions against
Iraq would be lifted.
In 1995 and 1996, intelligence
collected by UNSCOM was illegally and
deceitfully used by the CIA to plot to
overthrow Hussein.
Scott Ritter
Before the coup could be organized, however, Iraqi intelligence
uncovered the CIA operation and rounded up the conspirators along with
some of their equipment. The USA pulled out its inspectors.
By 1998, tensions built within the UN Security Council over weapons
inspections because it became clear that Iraq had largely, perhaps
completely disarmed. The Washington Post quoted a UN official saying,
“UNSCOM directly facilitated the creation of an intelligence collection
system for the United States in violation of its mandate. The UN cannot be
party to an operation to overthrow one of its member states.”
In 1999, the UN Security Council
disbanded UNSCOM and created a new
organization called the United Nations
Monitoring, Verification, and Inspection
Commission (UNMOVIC). Iraq refused
to accept UNMOVIC, arguing that UN
weapons inspections were designed to
create “recurrent and concocted crises
to prolong sanctions.”
Editorial Cartoon
Scott Ritter: “The inspection process…[was] abused by the United States
in pursuit of its own unilateral objectives of destabilizing and eliminating
Saddam Hussein. And the Iraqis would be damned fools to let such an
inspection team back in....”
The main weapon the USA used against the Iraqi people in the 1990s was
an embargo. The USA controlled the UN’s “661 Committee,” which
reviewed in secret all proposed contracts for Iraq’s imports and determined
if they would be allowed to proceed. The 661 Committee blocked the
importation of truck
tires, hospital ventilators, vaccines,
chemotherapy drugs, analgesics,
water tankers, humanitarian
supplies, spare parts for farm
equipment, as well as equipment
for refrigeration, firefighting,
yogurt production, radiotherapy,
the oil industry, water and
sanitation, telecommunications….
Editorial Cartoon
The embargo prevented Iraq from
repairing its electrical, water, and
sewage systems. In 1994, less than
50 percent of Iraqis had access to
safe drinking water (down from 96
percent before the Gulf War). Up to
40 percent of purified water was
lost through leakage because Iraq
could not import pipes or the earthmoving equipment necessary for
laying pipes. By 1996, all sewage
plants in Iraq had ceased operations.
The destruction of Iraq’s
electrical, water, and sewage
system, a war crime violating the
Geneva Convention, was
deliberately planned by the
Pentagon to accelerate misery so
that the Iraqi military would launch
a coup to overthrow Hussein.
Iraq’s economy depended heavily
on oil revenues, foreign trade,
foreign investment, and foreign
technology. Therefore, the embargo
had an immediate and crippling
impact. In 1991, 80 percent of the
industrial workforce was
unemployed. By 1999,
unemployment had dropped
slightly to 50 percent and per capita
income stood at less than $500 per
year, making Iraq one of the world’s
poorest countries. The Iraqi middle
class disappeared.
The agricultural reforms initiated in Iraq at US request during the 1980s
had made Iraq dependent on imported food. The embargo led to severe
food shortages. The Iraqi government rationed food, which prevented
famine, but malnutrition was commonplace. Malnourished people have
compromised immune systems, resulting in epidemics of diseases such as
typhoid fever. Tens of thousands died from illnesses brought on by
malnutrition. In 1999, UNICEF reported that one million Iraqi children
under five years of age suffered from malnutrition and 23 percent of all
Iraqi infants were born underweight. UNICEF concluded
that 5,000 Iraqi children under
the age of five were dying each
month because of the embargo.
Malnourished Iraqi Child
The UN’s Humanitarian
Coordinator for Iraq Denis
Halliday resigned to protest the
sanctions against Iraq. His
successor, Hans von Sponeck also
resigned in protest.
Denis Halliday
Hans von Sponeck
Denis Halliday: “You do not find bodies all over
the streets. You do not find gross malnutrition that
you see in photographs we’ve all seen in Somalia,
and so on. But you hear unending stories of
families who have sat there and watched a child
die. Or families—daughters and sons—who’ve seen
their parents die for lack of relatively simple
surgery which would have been very easy many
years ago…. And every day people are dying all
over the country, in isolation…. A baby here, a
baby there, a child here…it pervades the whole
country and the attitude and the feeling of the
Iraqi people….[The sanctions are] a deliberate,
active program—it’s not just negligence, it’s
active—it’s a deliberate decision to sustain a
program that they know is killing and targeting
children and people. Then it’s a program of some
sort, and I think it’s a program of genocide. I just
don’t have a better word.”
Americans were aware of the
impact of the embargo. A New York
Times editorial in 1991 rationalized
the suffering of ordinary Iraqis: “To
accept human suffering as a
diplomatic lever is tormenting—but
preferable to leaving the Persian
Gulf allies with no credible way to
compel Iraqi compliance but
resuming military attacks…. This is
the wrong time to relax the
embargo.”
Perhaps the most shocking
rationalization of US violence
against Iraqi citizens was made by
Clinton’s Secretary of State
Madeleine Albright who bluntly
said on 12 May 1996 that the death
of 500,000 Iraqi children because of
the embargo would not deter the
USA from pursuing its anti-Hussein
policies.
Madeleine Albright “60 Minutes” Interview
(12 May 1996)
Clinton said “[the] sanctions will
be there until the end of time or as
long as [Hussein] lasts.”
While control of
Middle Eastern oil is
considered by the
USA to be a strategic
interest, at least part
of US hostility toward
Iran, Iraq, and the
indeterminate enemy
called “terrorism”
can be explained by
the USA’s need for
an enemy to maintain
its war economy after
the fall of the USSR.
Before 11 September
Political Cartoon (Barry Deutsch)
2001, George W. Bush
hinted at launching a Cold War against China. Al Qaeda, however,
provided Bush with a better enemy—“terrorism,” which came to replace
“communism” as the rationale for a continuing Cold War economy.
US President
Barack Obama
only escalated
Bush’s “War
on Terrorism.”
Political Cartoon (Barry Deutsch)