by George Friedman
The United States had no use for the Iraqi regime and had supported the
Shah's Iran in a war against Iraq in the 1970s, ending in a peace that had
not been favorable to Iraq. With the Iranian revolution, the Americans were
looking for a lever to control Iran, . . .
The Carter administration wanted to motivate Saddam to fight, but he had
little to gain simply by fighting Iran. What Saddam wanted was to become the
dominant power in the Persian Gulf. Absorbing Kuwait, which had historically
been a part of Iraq under the Ottoman Empire until the British carved it out
for their own interests, was a key goal, but so was dominating the region
politically. He knew that if he defeated Iran, Iraq would be the dominant
power in the region. He was also quietly assured by the United States that
it would have no objection to his claiming his prize - Kuwait - once he
defeated Iran. The assurances were very quiet and very deniable.
The United States then did everything it could to make sure that Iraq could
never claim the prize, shifting its weight back and forth during the
Iran-Iraq war, in classic balance-of-power style. The famous Iran-Contra
affair engineered by Bill Casey was part of this strategy, with Americans
delivering Hawk surface-to-air missiles and TOW antitank missiles to Iran in
order to stave off an Iranian defeat - while also arranging for supplies to
Iraq. Under the circumstances it was a clever move until better options
emerged.
The Iran-Iraq war lasted nearly ten years and cost millions of lives. In the
end, Iraq won - or, more precisely, was less exhausted than Iran. After some
months of recovery, Saddam turned to collect his prize. In his famous
meeting with U.S. Ambassador April Glaspie on July 25, 1990, just before the
invasion, Saddam calmly explained his intention to invade Kuwait, and
Glaspie, not informed by the State Department that the policy had changed,
proceeded to give Saddam the reassurance of American support that had been
the U.S. policy transmitted by ambassadors and back channels for a decade. .
. .
What Glaspie didn't know. and what Glaspie hadn't been told, was that the
United States had never expected Iraq to win and certainly was not prepared
to let Saddam collect his war prize.
---
[Dr. George Friedman's firm Stratfor
has been dubbed by Barron's as "The Shadow CIA." It has provided analysis to
Fortune 500 companies, news outlets, and the U.S. government. This is an
excerpt from Chapter 1: The Fourth Global War, pages 19-21. Copyright ©
2004-2005 George Friedman]
[A high point of the public relations campaign against Iraq, was the
testimony of a Kuwaiti refugee, before the Congressional Human Rights Caucus
on October 15, 1990, who told of Iraqi troops removing over 300 babies from
incubators in Kuwait City hospital, and dumping them on the floor to die. On
January 6, 1992, John R. MacArthur, publisher of Harper's Magazine, revealed
that "Nayirah," the alleged refugee, was the daughter of Saud al-Sabah,
Kuwait's ambassador to the United States, and that Hill and Knowlton, a
large public relations firm, had helped prepare her testimony, which she had
rehearsed before video cameras in the firm's Washington office.--Enver
Masud, "Deadly Deception, Pretexts
for War," The Wisdom Fund, July 30, 2001]
[When George H. W. Bush ordered American forces to the Persian Gulf - to
reverse Iraq's August 1990 invasion of Kuwait - part of the administration
case was that an Iraqi juggernaut was also threatening to roll into Saudi
Arabia.
Citing top-secret satellite images, Pentagon officials estimated in
mid-September that up to 250,000 Iraqi troops and 1,500 tanks stood on the
border, threatening the key US oil supplier.
But when the St. Petersburg Times in Florida acquired two commercial Soviet
satellite images of the same area, taken at the same time, no Iraqi troops
were visible near the Saudi border - just empty desert.--Scott Peterson,
"In War,
Some Facts Less Factual," Christian Science Monitor, September 6,
2002]
Marc Perelman, "New Front Sets
Sights On Toppling Iran Regime," Forward, May 16, 2003
[AUDIO:
Fifty years ago, in a bold and far-reaching covert operation, the CIA
overthrew the elected government of Iran. Although the coup seemed
successful at first, its "haunting and terrible legacy" is now becoming
clear.
Operation Ajax, as the plot was code-named, reshaped the history of Iran,
the Middle East and the world. It restored Mohammad Reza Shah to the Peacock
Throne, allowing him to impose a tyranny that ultimately sparked the Islamic
Revolution of 1979.
The Islamic Revolution, in turn, inspired fundamentalists throughout the
Muslim world, including the Taliban and terrorists who thrived under its
protection.
In his new book "All The Shah's Men," New York Times correspondent Stephen
Kinzer asserts "It is not far-fetched to draw a line from Operation Ajax
through the Shah's repressive regime and the Islamic Revolution to the
fireballs that engulfed the World Trade Center in New York."-- Stephen
Kinzer, "All
The Shah's Men," NPR On Point, August 20, 2003]
