Iraqi Invasion of Kuwait

Saddam was asserting this principle, the principle of force, quite apart from any question about the rights or wrongs of his previous diplomatic dispute with Kuwait. It may well be that Iraq had some merit in its claims that were the immediate pretext for the war: Iraqi rights to a waterway into the Persian Gulf, alleged excessive Kuwaiti oil extraction from the Rumaila oil field which underlies both countries, and violation of its OPEC production quotas. There might, indeed, well be merit (or might not be) to the Iraqi protest that the Kuwaitis had not negotiated in good faith about these issues.

By deciding to resolve its grievances by armed force, indeed the invasion, occupation, and annexation of Kuwait, Saddam and the Iraqis put all these questions to the side. They resorted to force of a particularly unambiguous sort, on an equally unambiguous scale, to settle their disputes with Kuwait, by simply putting an end to Kuwait.

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he entire Arab world remains legally in a state of war against Israel. Thus, any Iraqi military attack against Israel is in some sense more nearly a sort of ceasefire violation than an initial act of war. Compare this to the situation between Iraq and Kuwait; although Iraq had made earlier efforts to annex Kuwait, notably in 1961, at the time of the August 2, 1990 invasion the two states had regular diplomatic relations, and were comembers of several international bodies such as the Arab League and OPEC. Thus, Iraq's invasion of Kuwait represented an abrogation of a previously accepted state of normal relations. Iraq had no normal relationship with Israel to abrogate; the two were and remained in a state of suspended war. Participation of Israel in an Iraqi war crimes trial is thus fraught with numerous political and legal difficulties, difficulties which would have to be resolved before any trial could begin. Similar considerations apply with respect to many other participants in trials. Iran was a victim of an act of Iraqi military aggression against its territory that had much in common with the invasion of Kuwait, and indeed was motivated in part by the same question of access to the Persian Gulf. B
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Approximate Word count = 5471
Approximate Pages = 22 (250 words per page)

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