Iraq: Military Confrontation with the United States and its Thirty-Three Allies

Abstract

This chapter traces the military confrontation between Iraq under Saddam Hussein and the United States backed by the international community, known as the Gulf War. To understand Saddam's decision to militarily engage the US, one must go back to his rise in power, his beliefs, and consequences of the Iraq-Iran war, as well as the invasion of Kuwait. The simplified explanation is that Saddam found himself in a difficult domestic situation. He had to maintain an extensive system of control, partially dependent on coercion, and partially dependent on incentives and rewards. This system was shaken by the Iraq-Iran war. While such domestic crisis alone might not have induced Saddam to fight a losing war, his anomalous beliefs ensured that he thought he could win by seeing the US as unable to stomach another war. In a way, such a belief could be interpreted as a wrongly-perceived window of opportunity. The counter-factual assessment provides additional evidence that a change in these conditions would likely have led to a different outcome.