Gulf War I Was Gulf

Gulf War I

Was Gulf War I a Necessary War?

Although most wars seem unjustified and preventable when examined in hindsight, the Gulf War I, fought by a coalition of allied forces led by the United States, against Iraq during January-February 1991 was a necessary war for a number of reasons. Consider.

Iraq, an Arab country, carved out of the remnants of the Ottoman Empire after the First World War, was led by a brutal dictator, Saddam Hussain since 1979. Saddam used the vast oil resources of the country to build a strong army and started to flex his military muscles. He invaded the neighboring country of Iran in 1980 and fought a long, stalemated war during which he had the tacit support of most other Arab countries as well as the United States.

However, Saddam over-reached himself when in August 1990 he invaded and annexed the small but oil-rich neighboring country of Kuwait without any cogent justification. At that point in time, Saddam controlled 20% of the total proven oil reserves in the world. He also possessed a vast arsenal of chemical weapons, which he had already used against the Iranians and his own civilian population. After easily capturing Kuwait, he was emboldened to make threatening noises against Saudi Arabia and started to amass troops along the Kuwait / Saudi border. This was a very dangerous development since the Saudi kingdom, which contained another 20% of the world's oil reserves, was militarily weak and liable to be easily over-run by the battle-hardened Iraqis. Saddam's control of such a vast proportion of a resource on which the world's economy depended was simply unacceptable for the rest of the world ("The Gulf War").