Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, October/November 1998, pages 123-124, 137

Book Reviews

War in the Gulf (1990-1991): The Iraq-Kuwait Conflict and Its Implications

By Majid Khadduri and Edmund Ghareeb, Oxford University Press, 1997, 229 pp. List: $35; AET: $25

Reviewed by Andrew I. Killgore

The Gulf war began with Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait on Aug. 2, 1990 (Aug. 1 in the U.S.). It ended with a U.S.-led military coalition expelling Iraq from Kuwait in Jan./Feb. 1991. Those are the bare bones of War in the Gulf by eminent retired professor/author Majid Khadduri and writer/journalist Edmund Ghareeb, Khadduri’s son-in-law. Khadduri for decades was professor and distinguished research professor at the Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), in Washington, DC.

But “bare bones” vastly understates the really astonishing depth, detail and scholarship poured into Parts I (Origins of the Gulf War), II (Immediate Causes), III (Stages of the War), and IV (Responsibilities for the War) of this book. The fact that both authors, Iraqi-born Khadduri and Lebanese-born Ghareeb, are equally at home in English and Arabic, have ready access to documents in both languages, and also to many Middle East officials enabled them to look deeply into every aspect of their broad subject.

For example, on a point of Middle East history about which I always knew I was not fully informed, I learned from the book the circumstances of Britain’s taking the Shaikh of Kuwait “under its protection” in 1899 which, of course, was the genesis of the current Iraq-Kuwait dispute. I knew that in that period Kuwait had been a part of the Ottoman Turkish district of Basra, the rest of which later became part of Iraq. I had always understood that imperial Britain took over Kuwait to thwart Germany from having a proper outlet on the Arabian Gulf for its rumored Berlin-to-Baghdad railway.

But that was only part of the story. In fact, according to Khadduri and Ghareeb, the Shaikh of Kuwait was also keenly interested in the connection, and Britain was uneasy about Russian as well as German ambitions in the Gulf area.

War in the Gulf’s examination of the Kuwait-British tie illustrates the comprehensiveness of this volume. The authors clarify another point of particular interest to Middle East specialists, especially U.S. diplomats and journalists. Were U.S. Ambassador to Baghdad April Glaspie’s remarks to Iraqi President Saddam Hussain on July 25, 1990, when she saw him for the first time since her arrival in Iraq, so soft and polite that he might have misread what President Bush was likely to do if Iraq seized Kuwait? Or was the Iraqi president ready to go for broke no matter what the consequences? Khadduri and Ghareeb provide every relevant detail and then, in their calm, detached style, leave readers to make up their own minds.

The authors refute media speculation of the time that President George Bush was ready to accept Iraq’s aggression and that it was only his previously scheduled meeting immediately after the Iraqi invasion with visiting British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in Colorado that put steel into his backbone. Khadduri and Ghareeb show that the president had already made up his mind that Iraq had to leave Kuwait, and that Bush’s “slow to get cranked up” temperament led to the speculation that he had been uncertain about what to do.

Khadduri and Ghareeb examine whether the Gulf war was inevitable. Their conclusion is a reasoned no. Because the various players were so out of synch and because the perceptions of those players were so varied, some readers might instead conclude that the answer is a reasoned yes, and that the tragic affair got out of hand and became not inevitable but simply unmanageable, with the same result. Again the authors examine every step of the crisis and let the readers reflect on what might have been the results “if only” this or that hadn’t happened.

The authors point out that Saddam Hussain had decided by the spring of 1990 to settle his disputes with Kuwait one way or another, including the use of force. These disputes were over the border between Kuwait and Iraq, Kuwait’s pumping of oil in excess of its OPEC quota, and Iraq’s debt to Kuwait for funds advanced to Iraq during the 1980-1988 Iraq-Iran war.

It happens that I asked Iraqi Deputy Foreign Minister Nizar Hamdoon (now Iraq’s ambassador to the United Nations) in Baghdad in 1988 if Iraq had to repay the loans to Kuwait. “They’ve never mentioned it,” he replied.

But in 1990 Saddam was seeking an explicit Kuwaiti forgiveness of the debt. At the July 31 Kuwait-Iraq meeting in Jeddah under the sponsorship of King Fahd of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait apparently offered Iraq nothing, although the authors quote Kuwaiti Crown Prince Sa’d Abdallah, who represented his country at Jeddah, to the contrary.

Then when the Iraqi representative at Jeddah informed Saddam that they had made no progress, Saddam ordered him to return to Baghdad immediately, and the Iraqi army invaded Kuwait some 30 hours later.

In retrospect, there seem to have been several “last” chances to avoid the war. This assumes, though it is by no means certain, that Saddam really would have been prepared to accept a negotiated solution. Perhaps if the Saudi hosts had stayed energetically “on top” of the Iraq-Kuwait dispute, if President Bush had told Saddam Hussain explicitly “don’t try it,” or if the Kuwaitis had at least appeared to want to negotiate, things might or might not have turned out differently.

Excellently covered by War in the Gulf are the Shi’i and Kurdish uprisings in Iraq after Iraq was defeated and its forces driven from Kuwait. President Bush gave the uprisings verbal encouragement, but that’s all. The basic reason for American inactivity was fear that an Iraq divided into three parts—the long-time goal of Israeli policy in the region—would be potentially very destabilizing for the entire area.

Students looking for detailed coverage of all aspects of the Gulf war and an encyclopedic look at the Arabian Gulf and its profoundly strategic environs will find it all in this book. Even the best-informed area specialists are bound to find in its pages new material to fill gaps in their personal knowledge of this cataclysmic series of events. Thus both beginners and “old Middle East hands,” are bound to find War in the Gulf a useful and rewarding reference on a subject that for too long has generated much emotion but very little detailed documentation.