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• Due to its strategic location and oil reserves, the Gulf was always likely to become the focus of tension, not only between Arab states but also between foreign powers
• From the 1920s onwards, tension had existed within and across borders in the Gulf States
• Persia's monarchy came to an end and the Shah and his family left the country for good

  16 January 1979
• Iranian Revolution


  Widespread belief that the Shah was corrupt and irreligious, led by 76 year old Ayatollah Khomeini
• The Iranian Revolution initially caused a war between Iran and Iraq, reflecting dangerous tensions within the Muslim world
• Shia


  Minority sect of Muslims, formed the bulk of the population in Iran
• Sunni


  Majority sect of Muslims, dominated the government in Iraq
• Khomeini called for the overthrow of the Ba'athist regime and an Islamic revolution in Iraq, which angered and concerned Iraq's President, Saddam Hussein
• Iraq went on the offensive and in September 1980 invaded Iran
• Neighbouring countries were fearful of the prospect of heightened volatility in the region, not least because Iranian Shia fundamentalists might stir up Shia minorities in countries which had Sunni rulers
• 43 Muslim states (plus the Palestinian Liberation Organisation delegates) attended a conference in Kuwait in 1987 to try to restore stability to the Arab world and safeguard the status quo, but little was achieved in Iran's absence
• Some Arab states were sympathetic to Iran, while others such as the Gulf States were so horrified that they sent Saddam arms and money
• During the Iran–Iraq war, the USA, Britain and France sent arms shipments to Saddam, and from 1984 US, Russian, British and French naval forces were deployed in the Gulf to protect the oil tankers
• The USSR had a particular interest in preventing the expanding influence of Iran, as it threatened to provoke the millions of Muslims who lived in the Soviet Union
• Iran had failed to remove Saddam from power and had not been able to spread its form of Shia revolution
• Iran was exhausted by the war, with an estimated 1 million casualties, huge military expenditure and declining oil sales which meant they were facing bankruptcy
• Iraq's oil revenues had been cut by 50% and with foreign debts approaching $80 billion, Saddam looked for opportunities to re-finance, rearm and reconstruct his economy
• Iraq's armed forces, like those of Iran, had borne the brunt of an appalling desert war characterised by aerial bombing, the use of chemical weapons and years of attritional fighting
• Neither Iran nor Iraq's regime had fallen, despite the length and scale of the war, which entrenched their internal power further
• The USA was also happy that neither Iran nor Iraq had won an outright victory
• Ever since the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, its very existence was challenged within the Arab world, particularly Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Iraq and Lebanon
• The support provided for Israel by Western countries fuelled resentment and distrust in many Muslim majority countries, particularly relating to the financial and military assistance given to Israel by the USA
• Saddam Hussein's forces attacked and occupied Kuwait


  August 1990
• Kuwaiti wealth


  Iraq was rearming and maintaining a large army, and the takeover of Kuwait was an obvious solution to Iraq's serious financial problems
• Saddam Hussein's ambitions for status and power

  The prospect of winning Kuwait's territory and coastline would provide a propaganda victory, and help Saddam pose as the leader of the pan-Arabic world
• Saddam justified the invasion by claiming that Kuwait was historically part of Iraq, but this claim had little substance
• Saddam assumed that Western nations – and the USA in particular – would be disinterested, as the USA had armed him during the war against Iran
• Saddam's expectation was that the rest of the world would allow Iraq to invade Kuwait without any serious intervention, but he was mistaken
• The USA had armed Saddam Hussein during the war against Iran
• From Saddam's perspective, as far as President Bush (Snr.) was concerned Iraq was the lesser of two evils as Khomeini had displaced the Shah, who was a long established US ally
• The USA appeared to be sending mixed messages regarding Iraq, with some suggesting that Saddam a regional force for good in the eyes of the US, a counter weight to the instability caused by Iranian militancy
• Saddam's expectation was that the rest of the world would allow Iraq to invade Kuwait without any serious intervention. In this he was mistaken
• The idea of Saddam as a new colossus astride the Gulf caused alarm far beyond the region - particularly in the UK and USA - something Iraq's self-confident military regime had failed to appreciate
• Operation Desert Shield

  1. Immediately following the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq, President Bush and his officials insisted on a total Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait before any negotiations would take place

  2. Bush was concerned that giving any concessions to Saddam Hussein would lead to greater Iraqi influence in the region, or contribute to the impression that Iraq benefitted from its military campaign
• Margaret Thatcher was in the US on a state visit when Iraq invaded Kuwait
• Thatcher shared President Bush's concern that Iraqi aggression could do untold political damage to the region
• There was also the matter of oil. If Iraq's invasion of Kuwait was allowed to take place, it could destabilise the world's oil supplies and cause regional and international economic damage
• Bush and Thatcher were particularly concerned about the threat that Iraq posed to Saudi Arabia, particularly after Saddam began to verbally attack the Saudis after the conquest of Kuwait
• Bush decided to send US troops to Saudi Arabia in early August 1990
• Thatcher was instrumental in this decision. During their talks, she put pressure on Bush to deploy troops in the Middle East to drive the Iraqi Army out of Kuwait