Content area
Full Text
The driving force behind Saddam Husayn's decisions to go to war in 1980 and 1990 was his belief that foreign forces were working to destabilize the Ba `th Party regime in Iraq. Saddam believed that Iraq had a good chance of winning those wars. However, the circumstances that encouraged that belief were not new or unique to the time in which those decisions were made. What changed in the period before those war decisions was Saddam's perception of foreign meddling against him in Iraq itself.
On July 17, 1997, in a speech celebrating the twenty-ninth anniversary of the establishment of the Bath party regime in Iraq, President Saddam Husayn drew an extensive parallel between the behavior of Iraq's two most recent military opponents - the United States and Iran. "There is no difference," he said, "between American behavior and Iranian behavior." In the end, the Iranians had to acknowledge their defeat and end their hostilities with Iraq, and, Saddam concluded, the Americans would shortly be forced to do the same.1 How could any leader claim victory in these two wars, one a terribly costly draw and the other a decisive defeat?
One could simply write off Saddam's comments as self-delusion or "big lie" propaganda. However, this speech, whose content is consistent with Iraqi public statements since well before the invasion of Kuwait on August 2, 1990, should be seen as a window onto the real motivations behind both the invasion of Kuwait and the attack on Iran. Later on in the speech, Saddam referred to the United States' failure "to conquer the will of the Iraqis and the glories of Iraq, the true companions and family of Saddam Husayn." He also said that the Iranians used the rationale of saving Iraqi Shi`is from his rule - that is, bringing down his government - as a pretext to continue the war against Iraq. "But," he reminded both the Iranians and his listeners, "I am here, and I am speaking about history to recall its lessons and expose similar foreign deceits against our country."2 Both wars were victories because the regime of Saddam Husayn remained in power.
This article develops the thesis that Iraq's decisions to go to war in 1980 and 1990 are best explained...