U.S. Became Involved in Desert

¶ … U.S. became involved in Desert Storm.

On January 15, 1990, Press Secretaty Marlin Fitzwater announces, "the liberation of Kuwait has begun."(Operation Desert Storm, n.d.) in his turn, President Bush told the people "Five months ago, Saddam Hussein started this cruel war against Kuwait. Tonight, the battle has been joined."(the History page, 2007)it was the start of what came to be known as Operation Desert Storm, the military intervention that took place at the beginning of the 90s against Iraq who had attacked its smaller neighbor Kuwait.

There are numerous views concerning the events that took place in 1991, especially about the underlying reasons that eventually led to the military operations.

The official reason for the involvement of the U.S. In the first Gulf War is the breach of the international norms involving sovereign states. Through an aggressive move, Saddam Hussein violated Kuwait's borders and engaged in battle for the annexation of its territory. Thus, according to the international law that clearly stipulates the sovereign right of states to exist, the victim of the aggression along with the rest of the international community must step up against this violation and retaliate. From this perspective, the coalition set against Iraq benefited from a wide legitimacy and support. Their actions were taken both in accordance with international law, and with the most important act of the international community, the UN Charter.

Still, there are other controversies too that make it difficult to fully understand the additional implications of the coalition's military intervention. Because of its central role, and due to the privileged nature as the superpower who had won the Cold War, the U.S.'s altered reasons for entering the war are the subject of great debate.

The actual intervention took place under the authorized mandate of the United Nations, which urged Iraq to "fully comply with Resolution 660 (1990) and all subsequent resolutions," while offering the international legitimacy for Member States "to use all necessary means to uphold and implement resolution 660 and to restore international peace and security in the area."(Luerdijk and Beernink, 2002) This concrete solidarity finalized in the conviction of the fact that "The Council's most impressive achievement as a body working together to tackle a major crisis was the liberation of Kuwait. This was no mean feat given shifting political sands in the U.S. And abroad, the enormous cost of such a major war, and the potential fighting power of the Iraqi forces."(Wilkinson and O'Sullivan, n.d.) Therefore, in essence, the operation Desert Storm can be seen as a relative success for the system instituted by the United Nations because it represented a good opportunity for the Security Council to stretch its institutional capabilities and ensure a proper response to a crime of aggression, the exact situation it was set up to react to in 1945.

Despite the morally just reason for intervening, there are those that doubt the lack of any additional interests from the U.S., the leader of the coalition.

Firstly, from a geopolitical point-of-view, Kuwait has indeed an extremely important positioning. It lays at the crossroads of major regional interests, being able to communicate with Iraq on the one hand, and with the rest of the Middle East, through different channels, on the other. Therefore, the loss of such a strategic point into the hands of what Bush had considered being a leader maybe worse than Hitler was not an option.

The coalition led by the United States was seen as an impressive rally of support for an international cause. It gathered a large number of countries determined, for various reasons, to stop Saddam Hussein from annexing Kuwait. From this perspective, it is interesting to notice the relationship between the U.S. And Syria, a participant to the military actions. A fine tuned analysis indicates that, indeed, in drafting the intervention plans, the U.S. must have had in sight the possible use of the Syrian's historical desire for hegemony in the Middle East to its own advantage. Therefore, Amnesty International admitted that the regime in Damascus was short of tyranny, with no respect for the human being. Thus, a coalition backed by important powers such as France, Canada, Britain, and Saudi Arabia also "included backing from Syrian President Hafez el-Assad, who had a long history of jockeying for power in the region against Saddam Hussein. This alliance brought an end to the illusion that the war in the Gulf was for humanitarian purposes and the restoration of democracy, since Assad, who killed 20,000 of his own citizens to quell an uprising in Hama, Syria, was comparatively more dictatorial than Saddam himself."(Fingrut, 1993)

In close connection with the geopolitical positioning of the kingdom of Kuwait and the regional alliances lay Western interests for oil. Head and Tilford noted in this sense that "the United States also feared a reduction in the flow of oil from Kuwait, especially for its Allies in Europe." (Head and Tilford 17) Indeed, it had become common knowledge that the Iraqi leadership had established the new foreign policy guidelines in terms of acquiring and controlling Kuwait's oil reserves. This attitude was determined by the acute economic crisis Saddam had led his country into, after the eight-year war with Iran. Therefore, his extensive need for money alarmed western countries and especially the U.S. who was dependent on the exports from the regions. Should have Iraq retain Kuwait's oil reserves, the export conditions would have certainly worsened.

The situation on the ground in 1990 also stirred concern among the policy analysts in Washington due to the potential spreading of the phenomenon that Saddam had initiated. Thus, American foreign affairs specialists suggested that the Iraqi leader could represent a threat to the actual independence of Saudi Arabia, a situation the Administration could not accept for various reasons. On the one hand, the diplomatic tradition between the two countries would have forced the U.S. To intervene in its favor. On the other hand, Saddam would have controlled a very important part of the oil reserves, a situation that would have permitted him to increase his negotiation position in the relationship with western countries.