I know very little about Arab politics so please enlighten me. When Iraq invaded Kuwait, why didn’t the Arab states states step in immediately to defend Kuwait? Were they afraid of Iraq’s military might or did they just not care about little old Kuwait? Why did it take the evil US to convince the Saudi’s to help out?
I cannot recall any point in history when any Arab nation defended any other Arab nation. They seem to be able to jointly attack other nations, even Arab nations, but defending each other doesn’t seem to be an element of their nature.
Tris
Iraq, at that time, had the 4th largest army in the world. I don’t know where Saudi Arabia ranks, but I bet it’s way down the list.
Iraq, remember, is also an Arab state, so defending Kuwait as an Arab state meant going to war with Iraq as an Arab state.
Plus, as already pointed out, Iraq was by far the most powerful Arab state in a military sense. Its Arab neighbours did not have the capacity to defend Kuwait against Iraq. Most or all of them did join in the US-led coalition which was put together, if I recall correctly.
Remember that the invasion of Kuwait was before the world realized just how much of a joke the regular Iraqi army was, before the Iraqi soldiers surrendering to press corps vehicles, before the 6-week war. As John Mace said, Iraq had the 4th largest army in the world at that time. They’d been fighting Iran, a much larger nation, to a standstill for 8 years. To all outside viewpoints, they were tough. And that wasn’t even counting the elite Republican Guard.
All through your post, I had Mr Hicks ringing in my ears…please tell me they weren’t just the Republican Guard?
I also got the impression that a country like Egypt, say, is not a natural ally of a country like Kuwait:
Kuwait (or Saudi Arabia): low population, non-democratic, capitalist, rich from the money of its oil revenues, fundamentalist Islamic state
Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Libya (to take a few examples): high population, democratic (at least in theory), socialist, poor, secular state
These are gross generalizations and I’m sure some of it is incorrect, but that’s the general idea I had from what I read on the subject.
I thought Saudi Arabia gave quite a bit of support, like letting Alliance troops free entry and heavy financial support? I don’t think think the SA military could have done anything by itself, it’d be like asking why The Netherlands didn’t support Belgium in WWI. (Militarily that is).
jayjay: The Iraqi army was far from a “joke”, like you said, it fought “Iran, a much larger nation, to a standstill for 8 years.” It is just that they were no match at all to the immensely technologically superior US* Military. Continuing my simile, it’d be like the WWI German Army vs the WWII American army. The technology divide was that vast.
- and Allies, of course.
You should remember that Kuwait had been part of Iraq until it was separated by oil companies. So Iraq’s claims that it was just getting back something that belonged to it rang true with many of the different Arab states.
Also, at the time, I got the feeling that the U.S. didn’t want a great deal of interference from different Arab countries on their running of the war.
The invasion of Kuwait was essentially complete before anyone had time to react. It took all of what, two days? for the Iraqi military to complete its charge. We probably couldn’t react to a surprise Canadian assault on Montpelier that quickly. I simply don’t think there was any way for any Arab country to get a military force mobilized to mount a defense.
How can someone “remember” something that isn’t true? Neither Iraq nor Kuwait existed before the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. Kuwait may have been governed from Basra during those times, but that didn’t make it “part of Iraq”. Both Iraq and Kuwait were British protectorates after WWI and until they became independent. And while oil certainly played a part in all this, it’s incorrect to say that oil companies separated them. Where did you get that nonsense from? That was part of SH’s “justification” for the invasion, along with claims of slant drilling and concern over the war debt it had incurred fighting Iran.
More nonsense. Saudi Arabia was scared shitless that they would be next. And most of the Arab nations in the region (except Jordan, IIRC) cooperated with the US to eject Iraq from Kuwait.
Kuwait was a distinct entity and an independent shiekdom before the modern state of Iraq existed. I haven’t any idea where you get the idea the “oil companies” separated them.
As to the general question, Ravenman has esentially hit the nail on the head. Iraq conquered Kuwait in two days. No country could possibly have mobilized fast enough to stop them, and once it was a fait accompli, the logical thing to do was to see how the world was going to react collectively - which worked out very nicely, as the big Allied force beat Iraq far easier than a solely Arab force could have.
You’re essentially correct of course, John. But just as a slight nitpick, Kuwait was around under the al-Sabah family before the formal Ottoman dissolution. What happened is that after a long, long period of neglect, the Ottomans re-asserted themselves briefly in the Gulf after 1871. However they lacked the resources to govern directly ( or more accurately, they decided to spend scarce resources elsewhere ). So they governed through proxies - those archrivals of the Sa’ud family of Riyadh, the Rashidis of Ha’il, were one ( they bet on a losing horse there ). The al Sabah family of Kuwait was another - they supplied military forces for Ottoman sanctioned actions and in the rivalry between the British and Ottomans they were universally regarded as Ottoman subjects ( unlike ) some of the emirates farther down the penninsula ). But quite cleverly they shifted allegiances for economic reasons as the Ottomans declined in the early 20th century.
Quite - Egypt and Syria both contributed whole divisions and Saudi Arabia multiple brigaeds and their air force.
The fact is the Kuwaitis were ( and pretty much are )loathed as opportunistic, plutocratic, elitist scum by most of the Arab world. But no one wanted Saddam to gain any more power and get bold enough to threaten SA.
The Iraqi army actually wasn’t that bad compared to some other regional armies. They weren’t that great either ( mostly they had good engineers ). But for the most part they simply were vastly outclassed by modern western forces by a huge margin.
Can someone explain why the invasion of Kuwait was such a big deal to the US? I’m not quite seeing how the invasion of a poorly defended place like Kuwait really threatened the oil supply to the world. Or am I not seeing the real picture, which seems to be the oil supply profits.
My initial reaction was, who cares which group has the oil? They have to sell it. But now I’m starting to see that it’s where the profits from such sales end up that determine policy.
As I see it , it’s not just that the US has access to oil, it’s that the US wants access to oil and have a say in where oil company profits go. It that correct?
No. Most of the entire world, not just the US, didn’t want Saddam to have control over a key resource like oil. The concern was not just Kuwait, but that Saddam would go into Saudi Arabia next. Saudi Arabia also was holding a lot of Saddam’s debt from the Iran/Iraq war, and he was being pretty bellicose about his ambitions in that country. That’s why GHW Bush was able to pull together a real coalition of most all the industrialized nations to kick Saddam out of Kuwait.
Something I’m curious about - was the slant drilling accusation legitimate?
Americans have long been programmed to think by the media that everything Iraq ever said was a lie. News reporters would practically roll their eyes whenever they covered Iraq’s claims about anything.
Saddam is the next Hitler. He does nothing but lie. Iraqi soldiers took babies from incubators and left them on the floor!
etc.
With all of that anti-Iraq/Saddam propoganda (some based on lies), no one treats anything Iraq/Saddam said seriously, but what if some of it was true? The fact that most if not all of the people reading this will scoff at the very thought demonstrates in part how strongly the “PR” campaign has influenced our thinking towards the enemies of the US.
Right. All the fuss about “Desert Storm II” mkes us forget the fact that most of the world was behind the USA in both Desert Storm I and kicking the Taliban’s ass. Now- not so much.
In addition to not wanting Iraq to have such a large percentage of the region’s oil and the threat to Saudi Arabia, it is important to remembert that the invasion of Kuwait happened as the Soviet Union was breaking up. There was a real fear at the time that the world could slide into a chaotic period of realignment and warfare in a post-Soviet period.
In addition to all the good points that have already been made, you might want to look at a map of the region. The invasion started at 0200 hours and the Iraqis were all over Kuwait by the end of the day - the second day of fighting was basically mopping-up operations. Given the distances involved, it would have been a miracle if any Arab nation had managed to get involved in that sort of timescale. Even NATO militaries don’t have many assets that can be deployed into combat 1000km away at 18 hours notice.
I guess my question is, why didn’t the Arab states particularly SA spearhead the defence of Kuwait?