in 1920 after the collapse of the Turkish Empire in the World War I era, while Kuwait had existed since 1899 and its international boundary had been delimited since 1913ùin other words, before the creation of Iraq (Cordesman 38). The reasons for the Iraq's invasion of Kuwait appear to have been a combination of the domestic economic crisis that was created by its high levels of military spending which continued even after the Iran-Iraq war's conclusion, and Saddam Hussein's belief that Iraq deserved more economic help from its southern Gulf neighbors (Cordesman 38).
As Iraq continued to spend on its military in 1988 and 1989, the Western world discounted the early warning signs that a war was in the offing. Having cooperated extensively with Iraq during the war with Iran, thd US and its Western European allies "assumed that the Iraqi regime had become more moderate and pragmatic, and would act to exploit Iraq's new regional status and economic opportunities" (Cordesman 46). The West was not caught off-guard, however. The US intelligence community provided strategic warning and timely analysis of the build-up of Iraqi troops along the Kuwaiti border, and the changing rhetoric of the Iraqi leadership in 1988 and 1989 had been duly noted by Western diplomats (Cordesman 46).
Iraq invaded Kuwait on August 2, 1990. Three Republican Guard divisions stormed across the border and met no resistance from Kuwaiti troops. By August 3rd, Iraqi units had taken up positions along the Kuwaiti-Saudi Arabian border. On that same day, Iraq announced that it would begin to withdraw its troops on August 5th, on the 4th Iraqi tanks and other units had begun fortifying their defensive positions in Kuwait (Cordesman 47).
The international reaction to the invasion was swift and decisive. On August 2nd, the United Nations Security Council unanimously passed resolution 660 condemning Iraq's invasion of Kuwait as a violation of the United Nations ...