The Gulf War: The Major Middle East Conflict of the 90s

The Gulf War is one of the wars that also ravaged Iraq before the infamous Iraq-American War. Despite the Gulf War not causing any problems or issues in the Philippines, it took greats tolls on other countries, especially the Arab and Western countries. It brought several countries to war leaving Iraq solo in the war against numerous strong countries. With this said, it’s good to look at one of the wars that was highlighted during the 90s.

            The issues that sparked the start of the war have to do with the political relations of Kuwait and Iraq. One issue that sparked the war is the denial of Kuwait to relieve Iraq of its debt. Since Iraq was already having a hard time before the start of the Gulf War, it did all the possible choices to alleviate its economy’s hardships. This showed a desperate move on Iraq and it proved to be useless as Kuwait didn’t share the same sentiments of this country. Ultimately, the relations of the two became worse. Iraq accused Kuwait of forcing them to open up their oil fields to Kuwait which then made their ties suffer more.

            Another issue has to do with the land dispute between the two countries. Since Iraq was desperate to fix its economic problems, it used the fact that some of the lands of Kuwait were supposed to be part of Iraq’s. This is true due to the fact it was United Kingdom who created the borders of Kuwait and Iraq out of fear that Iraq might threaten the superiority of the British in the Arab Gulf. Kuwait still rejected these claims and after these, negotiations failed and Iraq decided to fix everything by force through their conquest for Kuwait.

            The Iraqi army was able to take Kuwait City and make a provisional government for it. The original officials of Kuwait escaped to Saudi Arabia, however; the brother of the Emir of Kuwait was killed before they escaped from Kuwait. All of these events pushed foreign nations to take action in the situation. The United States, together with other nations from the Arab nations to the nations of the European Union, decided to take a joint offensive to take back Kuwait and neutralize the Iraqi Army. Given the numbers, the coalition forces were superior in the war and pushed back the Iraqis back to their homeland. In the end, with continuous fighting for the Iraqis proved useless, an agreement was settled between the Iraqis and the coalition.

            This war had several issues to think about. One issue has to do with the possibility of the Iraqis using chemical weapons that can harm civilians and soldiers severely. Another has to do with POWs being tortured which then defies the human rights. Lastly, there was the scorched earth policy of the Iraqis as they retreated back to their homeland which left several oil infrastructures inoperable for a long time. All of these showed that there are inescapable problems in war where abuse and disrespect is prevalent.

           

          The Gulf War is the same with other wars where abuse is prevalent between two sides. They show a lesson that any kind of war is not good because certainly, there will be abuse on both sides. Of course, death of soldiers is unavoidable but torturing or harassing those who can’t fight is another issue. This has been evident in the Gulf War and it went as far as affecting civilians in countries who are not even part of the war such as Israel. These are things people have to think about and reflect on today.

Just showin' what's important!

Bowen Romero

Source:

Article:

Gulf War. (2011, July 26).Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved July 31, 2011, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_War

Images:

Collins, S. (2008, November 16). Kuwait. The Canary Report. Retrieved July 31, 2011, from www.thecanaryreport.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/kuwait.jpg

Gulf War Troops. (n.d.).historyguy.com. Retrieved July 31, 2011, from www.historyguy.com/gulf_war_troops.jpg


Highway of Death. (n.d.).earthlink.net. Retrieved July 31, 2011, from home.earthlink.net/~lazydog2/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/highwayofdeath.jpg


Holmes, D. (1991, March 8). Various Arabic Troops during Operation Desert Storm.Wikimedia.org. Retrieved July 31, 2011, from upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/08/Various_Arabic_Troops_during_Operation_Desert_Storm.jpg


Holmes, P. (1991, February 28). British Army convoy during the Gulf War.Wikimedia.org. Retrieved July 31, 2011, from upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7d/British_Army_convoy_during_the_Gulf_War.JPEG