Saddam's War of Words: Politics, Religion, and the Iraqi Invasion of Kuwait

1. Introduction

In, out, do it, do it right, get gone. That’s the message. president george h. w. bush, just prior to operation desert storm1 1 INTRODUCTION The American president had a ghost to fight. He also had a new world order to launch. And when Saddam’s tanks rolled across the Kuwaiti border in the early morning hours of 2 August 1990, President Bush seized the opportunity. In his view the opportunity was clear-cut: the conflict, he told religious broadcasters, counterposed ‘‘good vs. evil, right vs. wrong, human dignity vs. tyranny and oppression.’’2 Thus, determined not to repeat the mistakes of Vietnam, and supported by generals who argued for the importance of decisive force vigorously applied , the president drew his line in the sand and set about building an impressive coalition to liberate Kuwait and inaugurate his vision of a new world order. After the most rapid deployment of military forces since World War II, the U.S.-led coalition accomplished the decisive victory the president desired and that informed military analysts had anticipated. Most in the West who think about the Gulf War think of it in those terms: well over a half million coalition troops arrayed against the Republican Guards; thousands of air strikes by B-52s; the vindication of PGMs, or precision-guided munitions; the 100-hour ground war; Iraqi capitulation; a victory parade down Pennsylvania Avenue led by the ‘‘Bear’’ himself, General H. Norman Schwarzkopf. ‘‘In, out, do it, do it Tseng 2004.1.9 09:57 6983 Long / SADDAM’S WAR OF WORDS / sheet 17 of 288 right, get gone.’’ That, the West recalls, was the Persian Gulf War. But the conclusion is too hasty, markedly incomplete. Other factors were at work. Away from M1-A1 tanks, resupply lines, and ship-launched cruise missiles, other battles were being waged, battles that antedated the second of August and which lasted well after the cease-fire at the end of February 1991. These battles pitted Arab government against Arab government, ruler against ruled, cousin against cousin, rich against poor, mufti against ulama. These battles used religion as a weapon, made radio and TV and sermons their venues, and drew their resupply from wells of ancient hostility. Culture and politics were the stuff of these battles. As they raged, they challenged the legitimacy of governments and institutions throughout the region, even as the combatants looked to history and religion for legitimation. For the military historian , the most difficult task in chronicling these battles is that of drawing the battle lines. Unlike Bush’s clearly demarcated line in the sand, these lines crisscrossed, weblike, through mosques, bazaars, universities , parliaments, diwans, palaces, refugee camps. Together, these battles composed a war, a war of which many in the West have been unaware, a conflict that could appropriately be named the ‘‘Other Gulf War.’’ The Arab world certainly remembers the Other Gulf War, and it does so largely negatively. In their remembrance , this Other Gulf War was not simply a neat military conflict neatly ended, but an irruption that tore at the social, political, and religious structures of the region. Neither was it a brief conflict that spanned only seven months. The causes of the conflict had long been in the making. Preceding the second of August was an ‘‘Arab Cold War,’’ which Malcolm Kerr had written of so eloquently earlier.3 Only in a quite limited sense, then, did 2 August 1990 mark a strict terminus a quo for the war. Saddam himself claimed repeatedly than an economic war had been underway for some time prior. Although the claim was patently self-serving, many in the region could see his logic and agree. And, as will be noted in the next chapter, this was not the first signi ficant border dispute (or even border incursion) involving Iraq and Kuwait. Similarly, the Other Gulf War had no real terminus ad quem in spring 1991. The cease-fire might temporarily have stopped bullets and PGMs; it could not erase hostility. It is a war that continues in myriad ways, as the concluding assessments made here will suggest. Against that background, this work will examine one aspect of the 2 s a d da m ’ s wa r o f wo r d s Tseng 2004.1.9 09:57 6983 Long / SADDAM’S WAR OF WORDS / sheet 18 of 288 Other Gulf War...