Persian Gulf Crisis :: essays research papers

Persian Gulf CrisisPersian Gulf Crisis, 1990-1991 How Saddam ibn Talal ibn Talal Husseins Greed and TotalitarianQuest for Power guide to the Invasion of Kuwait, World Conflicts and theDegredation of Iraq     Joseph Stalin. Fidel Castro. Adolf Hitler. Saddam Hussein. These namesare all those of leaders who have used a totalitarian approach to leading anation. Stalin and Hitler command in the early to mid-nineteen hundreds. LikeFidel Castro, Saddam Hussein is now. Saddam Hussein belongs to the Baath Partyof Iraq. This party adopts many techniques similar to those used by Stalin andHitler. Saddam Hussein conceived a plan to invade Kuwait. It was, perhaps, oneof the worst mistakes he could have made for his own reputation and for hiscountry. The invasion of Kuwait as well as the instaurations response to it, theenvironmental disaster it caused, and the degradation of Iraq were completelythe fault one man and his government Saddam Hussein and his Baath Government.& nbsp    One of Husseins weaknesses is negotiating. Negotiating in his terms isto compete it out with as much carnage as possible until his side comes out"victoriously". Repeatedly, Saddam and his government break internationalconvention laws. During his contend fought with Iran, the Iraqi army used chemicalweapons on the Iranian troops and even on their own Iraqi population. This wasseemingly overlooked by the relaxation method of the world because most nations didnt wantto see the Ayatollahs Islamic revolution rise. Iraq often obtained foreign armssupport from other nations because of this. It wasnt until the invasion ofKuwait that the rest of the world seemed to realize the danger that Iraq posedto its own people and to the Arab states surrounding it. Through poor planning,Saddam Hussein made three major mistakes that enabled an easy belabor of theIraqis.     The first mistake was that he captured all of Kuwait at the same time,inste ad of leaving it as a border dispute. This might have kept it from becomingan international affair. The second error was that Hussein positioned histroops too close to the Saudi Arabian border. Because of this, other nationsfeared that Saddams aggression was endless. The third mistake was that Husseinmiscalculated the worlds response. He overestimated the Arab "brotherhood" andby doing so, didnt realize that the rest of the world would try to stop him. Healso overestimated his own countrys host power, and believed that he couldannihilate military superpowers like the United States, Britain and France.     Saddam Husseins ultimate dream was to possess a nuclear bomb. Most ofthe world believed that Iraq didnt have the resources and materials to