ISSUE 91 : Nov/Dec - 1991 - Australian Defence Force Journal

4 AUSTRALIAN DEFENCE FORCE JOURNAL NO. 91 NOVEMBER DECEMBER 1991
Setting a tone for the future.
millenium to concentrate power in Baghdad. The
Party's ideology was fundamentally nationalism
based on socialist and secular principles, and this
automatically placed it at odds (ideologically) with
Kuwait's monarchial regime with its commitment to
capitalism. After 11 years in the shadows, Saddam
Hussein seized leadership of the party in 1979
through a systematic and ongoing liquidation of
political opponents and immediately commenced
establishing himself as a cult figure. 6
Kuwait's capitalist economy based on massive oil
revenue enabled it to amass enormous global
wealth, which it diversified by international investment.
Paradoxically. Iraq's equally massive income
from oil indirectly led it to economic disaster,
because it funded Iraq's ascendancy as the world's
largest importer of military equipment during the
disastrous Iran-Iraq War. Despite having the fourth
largest army in the world, Iraq was unable to secure
a decisive outcome and emerged from that conflict
in desperate need of petro-dollars to rejuvenate its
crippled economy. Attempting to force oil prices up,
Iraq was frustrated by Kuwait's arrogant refusal to
stem production to OPEC quotas, with the result
that Iraq's belligerence intensified with accusations
that Kuwait was causing massive losses in revenue.
Moreover, Iraq accused Kuwait of moving their
common border straddling the Rumaila oilfield
thereby allowing it (Kuwait) to draw more heavily
on the resource, and demanded financial compensation.
7
Iraq proclaimed Kuwait's actions were a 'tool to
implement American policy'in the Middle East and
linked this with the notion that Washington applied
double-standards towards Iraq and Israel.* Hussein's
attempts to draw Israel into the dispute was a thinly
veiled ruse by which he hoped to rekindle Arab
nationalism in the face of'Zionist-Imperialist conspiracies',
and thereby realise his ambition for
recognition as leader of the Arab world, whilst
simultaneously diverting attention from his decidedly
unneighbourly intentions toward another Arab
state. Immediately preceding the invasion the US
administration sent confusing 'signals' to Baghdad
via its Ambassador and the US State Department,
w hich declared 'the US had no obligation to come to
Kuwait's aid if attacked'. 9 Crisis talks aimed at
defusing the situation were torpedoed by Iraq's
insistence that Kuwait concede every point: less than
12 hours later the invasion commenced.
Australia's reaction to the invasion of Kuwait
highlights the principles behind our strategic posture:
'that international borders must be respected: and
that those who use force must not be permitted to
prevail'. 10