Saddam's short regional rise of militaristic projection

Eight years of war with Iran had left Iraq as a clear victor even though it hadn't gained anything from the war but casualties, Iraq had been at war with Iran for 8 years since it launched it's first wave and invasion in September 1980, before being forced to accept the ceasefire on August of 1988 after being on the offensive against Iraq for six years Iran had lost 60km of ground past the Iraqi border by the Iraqi Army and suffered several aircraft sorties.

Saddam Hussein had been made an infamous after ordering killing 5,000 people in a single gas attack on Halabja.

But Iraq came out of that war a regional power.



There was a delicate balance of power between 1988 and 1991, Iraq lost it's slip on power after the western nations led by the United States led a major aerial bombardment following their liberation of Kuwait.

But for a time after the Iran Iraq War there was a lot of uncertainty in the Middle East over the balance of power, Iraq had been ordering a lot of new military hardware to modernize it's forces, and was also on the way to developing a nuclear bomb probably in only a few short years, it had stationed Scud missiles and modified al-Hussein missiles in the west of the country facing towards Israel.

The world was changing, the wall had come down and eastern Europe had several revolutions, during this time in history there was a brief moment where Iraq was taking the opportunity to be the dominant military power in all of the Middle East.

In February 1990, Saddam Hussein demanded US naval vessels leave the Persian Gulf, however passed almost unobserved in the West, as they were all too busy with the developments in Europe and dissolution of the USSR.



By March 1990, US intelligence learned about Iraq building permanent missile launching sites in the west of the country, facing Israel.

Saddam Hussein announced that Iraq was in possession of binary chemical weapons and that:

“By God, we will make the fire eat up half of Israel, if it tries to do anything against Iraq.”

During the Arab Leage Summit, held in Baghdad, in late May 1990, the Iraqi President furthermore called for the liberation of Jerusalem, attacks on the USA and Israel, and demanded $27 billion from Kuwait, while blaming Kuwaiti and Saudi greed for oil, and equating them with an act of war against Iraq.

However there was a small emerald Saddam needed to ensure he had under his direct control to help the Iraqi economy recover from the war and ensure he stayed in his position of power for some more years to come.

The modern state of Kuwait was a country cut out of the old Ottoman empire of Basra back in 1961 for strategic purposes and for the lake of oil it sat on.

Control of Kuwait would be vital in helping Iraq completely recover economically and allow it to prosper following the long war with Iran.

So in August of 1990 Iraq invaded Kuwait with over 100,000 troops, it only took a matter of hours.



Even though Iraq had a fair claim on Kuwait and had been mislead into believing the west would not intervene it was the resulting 1991 Persian Gulf War that would indefinitely shift the balance of power in the Middle East, as the US led and Saudi paid coalition used a massive amount of air power (including B-52's flying non stop from Barksdale AFB in Louisiana firing cruise missiles) to bombard Iraq destroying most of it's air defense, command centres and air defense centres and eventually a large amount of the countries infrastructure.



Iraq launched Scuds at Israel and Saudi Arabia with little effect (with the exception of the 28 US soldiers killed in the barracks at Dhahran) in undermining both states, the US ground offensive following the liberation of Kuwait lasted under 100 hours.

After being at war with the United States Saddam Hussein was left in power, he no longer had enough projection to use conventional power against his neighbours but still had some tanks and army and a marginally effective air force, the reason for leaving him in power was to ensure that neither Syria nor Iran could walk over Iraq with the brutal tyrant in power.

It was a drastic turning in the balance of power the aftermaths of them could be evident when the US led the invasion on the false provocation that Iraq actually mustered up the resources to develop Weapons of Mass Destruction.

Iraq's slip on power

Following an eight year war with Iran Saddam Hussein's Iraq was in deep debt, although he came out of the war claiming to be a winner the truth was the countries economy had taken a hard blow, the war had been a blow to his forces and he owed billions in war debts to his southern Emirate neighbors.

However following the war with Iran the Iraqis (or Saddam at least) was opting to make Iraq a regional military super power making plans to rebuild his military

It owed $65 billion in unforgiven debts to Kuwait, which in those years was depressing other oil states since it was overproducing oil selling it for under the price required by OPEC, this further devastated the Iraqi economy, that along with the fact that due to history Kuwait was technically part of Iraq and had been given statehood on ignorant strategic purposes by western powers.

During this postwar time (1988 to 1990) the Iraqi regime had big plans regarding their regional power in the future, especially regarding improving their air power as a potent weapon of terror and a tool for destruction of enemy economies. Aside from purchasing around 140 MiG-29s (137 were eventually ordered and built, but less than 40 delivered) and 36 Su-24 fighters from the USSR (intended to replace obsolete MiG-23MF/MLs, Tu-16s, TU-22Bs, and MiG-25RBs) the IrAF was also showing immense interest in obtaining Su-27 Flanker and Mirage 2000 fighters.

As well as this Iraq was financing the development of a conventionally armed version of the French ASMP supersonic cruise missile, and the development of the MAA-1 Piranha heat-seeking air-to-air missile in Brazil, both of which were eventually planned to enter production in Iraq too. The basic problem with all these projects was money: Iraq was so starved of finances that negotiations for Mirage 2000s were dropped in 1989, because the French insisted that Iraq had to first pay its debts. The collection of MiG-29 interceptors was also slow, Baghdad instead turning to Moscow and negotiating for Su-27s. Eventually, all the projects were stopped due to the invasion of Kuwait in August 1990 which was Iraq's final attempt to stop the country going into economic collapse, after (in a view opposed to in the west) Iraq annexed Kuwait renaming it the 19th province of Iraq.



While in the west it was blown out of proportion, after launching Operation Desert Shield the US convinced the UN to veto Iraq, a coalition was built up in Saudi Arabia under the pretext of defending it and that Iraq was ready to attack (they were digging in around Kuwait City).

Starting on January 17th Iraq's economic and military problems were about to get much worse, the start of the stupid TV war Operation Desert Storm had begun, several units of the Iraqi air force flew to Iran to avoid destruction by the coalition onslaught of aircraft sorties and cruise missile strikes.



Iraq in retaliation only managed to fire 32 Scud missiles at the Israeli cities of Tel Aviv and Haifa killing two civilians and a few at Saudi Arabia in one case killing 28 soldiers in a barracks in Dhahran.

After the first 100 hours of the ground war the American led coalition ground forces stopped at the Euphrates, Iraq had been blown to tatters and most of the world held economic sanctions against them, Saddam was left in power to stop Iran and Syria becoming too powerful over a weak Iraq, which is how they had left Iraq, a weak enemy that could come under threat from their biggest potential enemy in the neighboring region (Iran).

In 2003 the US went the extra mile and went in to personally overthrow Saddam, which led to a rather violent war which has only cooled down in the past year or so, the Iraqi people had a real street thug as their president for the latter half of the 20th century and paid heavily for it after only ever maintaining a brief grip of power that a nation of its size and wealth deserved!