Analysis: How Iran reaped the rewards of Saddam’s 1990 Kuwait invasion

1 / 8
An aerial view of burning oil wells in al-Ahmadi oil field in Kuwait, set ablaze by retreating Iraqi troops, on March 14, 1991. (AFP file photo)
Short Url
Updated 03 August 2020
Follow

Analysis: How Iran reaped the rewards of Saddam’s 1990 Kuwait invasion

  • Invasion transformed Iraqi dictator from a necessary bulwark against Iran to an international pariah 
  • The events unleashed a three-headed hydra of sectarianism, terrorism and militancy across the Middle East

LONDON: Thirty years on, we continue to endure the catastrophic reverberations of the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. This act set in motion events that would unleash a three-headed hydra of sectarianism, terrorism and Iranian militancy. 

The August 2 invasion constituted an immense psychological shock. We woke to images of utter horror and chaos: Arab soldiers assaulting and looting another Arab nation. Ordinary Kuwaiti families upended from lives of luxury — fleeing as terrified refugees into Saudi Arabia. The invasion was particularly disconcerting, given that Kuwait had been a principal ally and backer for Baghdad during the previous decade’s war with Iran. 

Julius Caesar’s crossing of the Rubicon famously marked his point of no return, committing his armies to a devastating and history-changing Roman civil war. The Kuwait invasion represented Saddam Hussein’s own personal Rubicon crossing. 


ALSO READ: Moments that changed the Middle East


In 1990, Saddam was just another dictator who would have scarcely deserved a mention in the history books if he had been displaced in yet another Baathist, communist or Islamist coup a couple of years later. The Kuwait invasion saw him justifiably demonized in the global media as a savage, dictatorial monster who would have to be slain. 

Within a year, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis would be dead — murdered by their own regime after the brutal suppression of uprisings which followed the Kuwait conflict. The Iraqi army was humiliated and destroyed, with tens of thousands of Iraqi soldiers dead, and many others fleeing home to join ill-fated uprisings leaving the skeletons of thousands of abandoned tanks scattered across the desert. 


1990 Kuwait invasion recap

  • On July 18 Iraq accuses Kuwait of stealing oil and encroaching on territory.
  • Iraq’s President Saddam Hussein demands $2.4 billion from Kuwait.
  • Kuwait accuses Iraq of trying to drill oil wells on its territory.
  • Iraq accuses Kuwait of flooding oil market and driving down prices.
  • On August 1 Arab League and Saudi Arabia suspend mediation attempts.
  • On August 2 Radio Kuwait accuses Iraqi troops of occupying its territory.
  • Faced with 100,000 Iraqi troops and 300 tanks, Kuwaiti army is overwhelmed.
  • Kuwait City falls and Kuwait’s ruler Sheikh Jaber Al-Sabah flees to Saudi Arabia.
  • UN Security Council demands immediate pullout of Iraqi forces from Kuwait.
  • On August 6, Security Council slaps trade and military embargo on Iraq.
  • President George H.W. Bush announces dispatch of troops to Saudi Arabia.
  • On August 8, Iraq announces Kuwait’s “total and irreversible” incorporation.
  • Later in the month, Iraq annexes Kuwait as its 19th province.

President George H.W. Bush made the equally fateful decision not to pursue Saddam’s army to Baghdad. The rights and wrongs of Bush’s decision continue to be argued over, but this left Saddam in power — wounded and vengeful. Unquestionably in 1990, Saddam had to be forced out of Kuwait, particularly as there were fears that he might send his forces deeper into the Gulf region. Yet cutting Saddam down to size led to a fundamental destabilization of the regional balance of power. 

Throughout the 1980s, the ayatollahs’ regime in Tehran had been kept at bay by means of the vicious confrontation with Iraq, costing around a million lives. When Saddam’s regime fell like a dead branch in 2003, the Islamic Republic remained as a dominant regional force, free to spread its tentacles into Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Bahrain and beyond. 

Already during the 1980s and 1990s, Tehran had been responsible for terrorist attacks, militant insurgencies and attempted coups, such as the 1996 Alkhobar bombings, which killed 19 US service personnel. 

With Saddam gone, the ayatollahs desired not only to ensure that Iraq could never again exist as a threat, but to export their revolution throughout the Middle East, following the blueprint of Hezbollah in Lebanon. 

Consequently, a sizable chunk of the region has been severed from the Arab sphere of influence, with Tehran today trying to knit these disparate nations together as a miserable and marginalized bloc of “resistance” states. 

Yes, Saddam was a monster — a murderous threat to his own people and his neighbors. But in the years since 1990 we have discovered that there are worse things than his kind of monster. 

When the hateful regimes of Saddam, Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi, Syria’s Bashar Assad and Yemen’s Ali Abdullah Saleh were challenged and upended, the result was mass civil chaos which has cost upwards of a million lives, displacing countless millions. It may be more than a generation before these nations enjoy the most elementary levels of stability, if ever. 




Former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein rallying his troops. (AFP photo)

I was an in-house analyst for CNN during the 2003 conflict. Anyone familiar with Iraq knew that regime change would be infinitely more challenging than President George W. Bush’s administration claimed. We shared Iraqis’ jubilation at the prospect of being rid of Saddam. Yet in our worst nightmares, few could have guessed how devastatingly far-reaching the ramifications of the invasion would be today, leaving Iraq and other nations as crippled, satellite dependencies of Tehran. 

The events of 1990 and 2003 ignited the catastrophic Shia-Sunni divide, which in Iraq alone saw tens of thousands massacred in sectarian warfare as Iranian-sponsored militants bloodily erased Sunni and Christian populations from entire districts of Baghdad. 

Saddam’s war helped radicalize figures like Osama bin Laden against the US, leading to Al-Qaeda and 9/11, which in turn set in motion the 2003 invasion, precipitating an explosive expansion of jihadist terrorism: Violence giving birth to violence on an ever-expanding scale. 

Yes, Saddam was a monster, but in the years since 1990 we have discovered that there are infinitely worse things than monsters. 

Baria Alamuddin

The White House in 2003 had neither the vision nor the desire to establish a stable, sovereign and well-governed Iraqi state. Through incompetence and malice, the US-led coalition succeeded in triggering a bloodbath, unifying Iraqis against them and handing over the keys of governance to Tehran. It all could have been so different. 

During the 1980s, Saddam had been an ally of America and the West. These states conveniently turned a blind eye to his homicidal regime’s horrific crimes. Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait would change all that, while transforming himself from a necessary bulwark against Tehran to an international pariah. Overnight, he unified the entire world against him. 

Today in 2020, there is plentiful evidence that Iran itself may be bringing the world to a tipping point where its terrorism, militancy and criminality become too horrific to ignore, with its suppression of the democratic aspirations of citizens throughout its “resistance bloc,” use of proxies to attack peace-loving nations, and efforts to acquire nuclear weapons to menace the world. 

Just like Saddam, sabre-rattling ayatollahs risk their own Rubicon moment by taking their aggressive expansionism a step too far. And just like Saddam, the Iranian ayatollahs will eventually unite the world against them, bringing an unlamented end to their Satanic Republic.

_____________

Baria Alamuddin is an award-winning journalist and broadcaster in the Middle East and the UK. She is editor of the Media Services Syndicate and has interviewed numerous heads of state.


Houthis say four killed in latest Israeli strikes on Yemen

A Yemeni man checks the rubble of a building hit in US strikes in the northern province of Saada on April 29, 2025. (AFP)
Updated 9 sec ago
Follow

Houthis say four killed in latest Israeli strikes on Yemen

  • Strikes came after a Houthi missile penetrated the perimeter of Ben Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv for the first time
  • The latest Israeli attacks on Houthi territory came as regional tensions soar anew over Israel’s plan to expand operations in Gaza and displace much of its population

SANAA: Yemen’s Houthis on Tuesday said four people were killed and 39 wounded in Israeli air raids that followed a missile strike by the group on Israel’s main airport.
The latest Israeli attacks on Houthi territory came as regional tensions soar anew over Israel’s plan to expand operations in Gaza and displace much of its population.
“Three citizens were killed and 35 others wounded” at a cement factory in Bajil, while one person died and four were wounded at Hodeida port, the Houthis’ Al-Masirah TV station said, quoting the health ministry.
The Houthis blamed both the United States and Israel for the attack, but while Israel confirmed it had carried out the strikes, an American official denied US involvement.
Monday’s strikes came after a Houthi missile penetrated the perimeter of Ben Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv for the first time, leaving a large crater.
The Houthis, who control swathes of Yemen, have launched missiles and drones targeting Israel and Red Sea shipping throughout the Gaza war, saying they act in solidarity with Palestinians.
Israel says it has targeted Yemen five times since July 2024, with Houthi authorities reporting a total of 29 people killed. Israel’s army regularly intercepts missiles from Yemen.
The Israeli army said it hit Hodeida port because it was used for the transfer of Iranian weapons and equipment, while the cement factory was a “significant economic resource” for the rebels.
Earlier on Monday, Israel’s security cabinet approved stepped-up military operations in Gaza, including the territory’s “conquest.”
The Houthis claimed responsibility for Sunday’s “hypersonic ballistic missile” attack and threatened fresh missile strikes on Israel’s airports.

The Houthis, who control swathes of Yemen including Sanaa, have launched missiles and drones targeting Israel and Red Sea shipping throughout the Gaza war that began in October 2023, saying they are acting in solidarity with Palestinians.
US strikes against the Houthis began under former president Joe Biden but have intensified under his successor Donald Trump.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday vowed a tough response against the Houthis, as well as its main backer Iran, over the airport attack.
In a video published on Telegram, Netanyahu said Israel had “acted against” the Houthis in the past and “will act in the future.”
“It will not happen in one bang, but there will be many bangs,” he added.
On social media platform X, Netanyahu said Israel would also respond to Iran at “a time and place of our choosing.”
Iran on Monday denied supporting the attack, calling it an “independent decision” by the Houthis taken in solidarity with the Palestinian people.
Reacting to Netanyahu’s threats, the Islamic republic warned it would retaliate against any attack on its territory.
“Iran underlines (its) firm determination... to defend itself,” the Iranian foreign ministry said, warning Israel and the United States of “consequences.”
An Israeli military spokesperson told AFP that Sunday’s attack was “the first time” that a missile has directly struck inside the airport perimeter.
An AFP journalist inside the airport during the attack said he heard a “loud bang” at around 9:35 am (0635 GMT), adding that the “reverberation was very strong.”
Flights resumed after being halted briefly, with the aviation authority saying on Sunday that Ben Gurion was “open and operational.”
Some international airlines have canceled flights, including SWISS which extended its suspension until Sunday.


Israeli plan to seize Gaza alarms many: ‘What’s left for you to bomb?’

Updated 14 min 33 sec ago
Follow

Israeli plan to seize Gaza alarms many: ‘What’s left for you to bomb?’

  • Israel’s ensuing offensive has killed more than 52,000 people in Gaza, many of them women and children, according to Palestinian health officials

DEIR AL-BALAH: An Israeli plan to seize the Gaza Strip and expand the military operation has alarmed many in the region. Palestinians are exhausted and hopeless, pummeled by 19 months of heavy bombing. Families of Israeli hostages still being held in Gaza are terrified that the possibility of a ceasefire is slipping further away.
“What’s left for you to bomb?” asked Moaz Kahlout, a displaced man from Gaza City who said many resort to GPS to locate the rubble of homes wiped out in the war.
Israeli officials said Monday that Cabinet ministers approved the plan to seize Gaza and remain in the Palestinian territory for an unspecified amount of time — news that came hours after the military chief said the army was calling up tens of thousands of reserve soldiers.
Details of the plan were not formally announced, and its exact timing and implementation were not clear. It may be another measure by Israel to try to pressure Hamas into making concessions in ceasefire negotiations.
The war began after Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting 251. Israel says 59 captives remain in Gaza, about 35 of whom are believed to be dead.
Israel’s ensuing offensive has killed more than 52,000 people in Gaza, many of them women and children, according to Palestinian health officials, who don’t distinguish between combatants and civilians in their count.
“They destroyed us, displaced us and killed us,” said Enshirah Bahloul, a woman from the southern city of Khan Younis. “We want safety and peace in this world. We do not want to remain homeless, hungry, and thirsty.”
Some Israelis are also opposed to the plan. Hundreds of people protested outside the parliament Monday as the government opened for its summer session. One person was arrested.
Families of hostages held in Gaza are afraid of what an expanded military operation or seizure could mean for their relatives.
“I don’t see the expansion of the war as a solution — it led us absolutely nowhere before. It feels like déjà vu from the year ago,” said Adi Alexander, father of Israeli-American Edan Alexander, a soldier captured in the Oct. 7 attack.
The father is pinning some hopes on US President Donald Trump’s visit to the Middle East, set for next week. Israeli leaders have said they don’t plan to expand the operation in Gaza until after Trump’s visit, leaving the door open for a possible deal. Trump isn’t expected to visit Israel, but he and other American officials have frequently spoken about Edan Alexander, the last American-Israeli held in Gaza who is still believed to be alive.
Moshe Lavi, the brother-in-law of Omri Miran, 48, the oldest hostage still believed to be alive, said the family was concerned about the plan.
“We hope it’s merely a signal to Hamas that Israel is serious in its goal to dismantle its governmental and military capabilities as a leverage for negotiations, but it’s unclear whether this is an end or a means,” he said.
Meanwhile, every day, dozens of Palestinians gather outside a charity kitchen that distributes hot meals to displaced families in southern Gaza. Children thrust pots or buckets forward, pushing and shoving in an desperate attempt to bring food to their families.
“What should we do?” asked Sara Younis, a woman from the southernmost city of Rafah, as she waited for a hot meal for her children. “There’s no food, no flour, nothing.”
Israel cut off Gaza from all imports in early March, leading to dire shortages of food, medicine and other supplies. Israel says the goal is to pressure Hamas to free the remaining hostages.
Aid organizations have warned that malnutrition and hunger are becoming increasingly prevalent in Gaza. The United Nations says the vast majority of the population relies on aid.
Aid groups have expressed concerns that gains to avert famine made during this year’s ceasefire have been diminishing.
Like most aid groups in Gaza, Tikeya has run out of most food and has cooked almost exclusively pasta for the past two weeks.
Nidal Abu Helal, a displaced man from Rafah who works at the charity, said that the group is increasingly concerned that people, especially children, will die of starvation.
“We’re not afraid of dying from missiles,” he said. “We’re afraid that our children will die of hunger in front of us.”


Chinese fighter jets soar over Egypt in first joint exercises

Updated 32 min 45 sec ago
Follow

Chinese fighter jets soar over Egypt in first joint exercises

  • Drills showcased China’s military hardware, Egypt’s regional clout
  • Beijing expanding defense and technology ties in North Africa

BEIJING: The sound of Chinese fighter jets roared over the Egyptian pyramids and could echo across the Middle East, as Beijing wrapped up military drills with Cairo aimed at chipping away at US strategic influence in the volatile region.
China’s military on Monday released videos of its fast jets, helicopters and transport planes flying high above the Sahara and hailing inaugural joint air force exercises with Egypt as “a signal of deepening military ties and shifting alliances.”
The joint exercises with one of the United States’ biggest security partners come as Washington increasingly turns inward under President Donald Trump, allowing China to deepen ties across North Africa and invest billions in security projects.
“As Egypt looks beyond its traditional US partnership, a new era of cooperation is taking flight over Cairo’s skies,” said a video released by the international division of state broadcaster CCTV, as a jet plane takes off into the night.
Global Times, a tabloid owned by the newspaper of the ruling Communist Party, People’s Daily, said the “Eagles of Civilization 2025” drills had established a foundation for various potential cooperation between the two countries’ militaries at a time when Egypt is trying to upgrade its combat equipment, citing experts.
Analysts say the 18-day drills also help Egypt assert itself as a major regional power among the Arab nations and North Africa amid growing regional turbulence.
“It’s great public diplomacy for (China), particularly in the Middle East,” said Eric Orlander, co-founder of the China-Global South Project. “It’s what brings people in the door for them to sell drones, SAMs, light arms, transports, et cetera.”
“A major regional power needs an Air Force, right?” he added.
Orlander cautioned that switching jet fighter systems is very expensive, and Washington could choose to withhold financial military support from Cairo if it upped its purchases of Chinese technologies.
But the United States — the primary security partner to Egypt, neighboring Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states since the late seventies — has made large foreign cuts under Trump that have been keenly felt across the region.
And with the Gaza crisis unfolding to its north-east, ethnic violence in Sudan to the south, and political instability in Libya to its west, Egypt finds itself squeezed on three fronts.
China has since pledged billions in fresh investment for projects such as satellite manufacturing facilities in Egypt capable of producing military-grade surveillance equipment.
Beijing’s air force said the drills represented “a new starting point and a significant milestone in military cooperation between the two countries,” in a statement marking their conclusion.


First Jordanian passenger jet lands in Syria’s Aleppo after 14-year hiatus

Updated 34 min 21 sec ago
Follow

First Jordanian passenger jet lands in Syria’s Aleppo after 14-year hiatus

  • The airline said it will run three flights per week from Amman to Aleppo

CAIRO: A Royal Jordanian Airlines passenger jet landed in Aleppo on Tuesday, marking the company’s first flight to the city after nearly 14 years.

The flight was from Amman to Aleppo International Airport, according to the Syrian News Agency.

The airline said it would run three flights a week from Amman to Aleppo, on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, SANA reported.

Royal Jordanian had operated a trial flight in March to assess the airport’s technical and security readiness.

The airline began commercial flights to Damascus in January, according to a previous SANA report.


Top Hamas official says Gaza truce talks no longer of interest

Updated 06 May 2025
Follow

Top Hamas official says Gaza truce talks no longer of interest

  • A senior Hamas official said Tuesday the group was no longer interested in truce talks with Israel and urged the international community to halt Israel’s “hunger war” against Gaza

GAZA: A senior Hamas official said Tuesday the group was no longer interested in truce talks with Israel and urged the international community to halt Israel's "hunger war" against Gaza.
"There is no sense in engaging in talks or considering new ceasefire proposals as long as the hunger war and extermination war continue in the Gaza Strip," Basem Naim told AFP.
He said the world must pressure the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to end the "crimes of hunger, thirst, and killings" in Gaza.
The comments by Naim, a Hamas political bureau member and former Gaza health minister, come a day after Israel's military said expanded operations in Gaza would include displacing "most" of its residents.
On Monday Israel's security cabinet approved the military's plan for expanded operations, which an Israeli official said would entail "the conquest of the Gaza Strip and the holding of the territories".
Nearly all of the territory's residents inhabitants have been displaced, often multiple times, since the start of the war sparked by Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.
Gaza has been under total Israeli blockade since March 2 and faces a severe humanitarian crisis.
Israel's military resumed its offensive on the Gaza Strip on March 18, ending a two-month truce.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot in a radio interview on Tuesday called Israel's plan for a Gaza offensive "unacceptable", and said its government was "in violation of humanitarian law".