ral Middle East.
According to Brzezinski et al., "during the 1980s, the United States strove to maintain a de facto balance of power between Iraq and Iran so that neither would be able to achieve a regional hegemony that might threaten American interests" (22). American relations with Iran deteriorated during the Iranian hostage crisis; however, the United States remained neutral during the first two years of the 1980-1987 Iran-Iraq war. As, however, the tide of battle shifted in favor of the Iranians after mid-1982, American Secretary of State George Shultz said: "our support for Iraq increased in rough proportion to Iran's military successes" (237). The United States provided Iraq with valuable diplomatic, economic and intelligence assistance.
After the Iran-Iraq war ended, Iraq found itself saddled with a massive war debt of nearly $100 billion, about half to non-Arab arms suppliers and the rest to its Arab Gulf neighbors, including $14 billion owed to Kuwait (Hiro 42). Iraq's ability to repay was hampered by declining world oil prices. A 1989 CIA National Intelligence Estimate opined: "war weary Iraq will pose a military threat to small neighboring states . . . but will be reluctant to engage in foreign military adventures" (Gordon and Trainor 10). Hussein, however, had shown in the past a willingness to take huge risks to consolidate his domestic position, such as by attacking more populous Iran when Khomeini's minions stirred up Iraq's Shiites. In 1989-1990, he turned on his Arab benefactors, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the other Gulf states.
At a series of meetings among the leaders of Arab countries in early 1990, Hussein demanded that Saudi Arabia and Kuwait lower their oil production and that all the Gulf states cancel
Iraq's war debts to them. He exploited a long dispute over the Iraqi-Kuwaiti border, which originally was drawn up by the British in 1922. That line was unpopular with Iraqi nationalists ...