Monday, Aug 04, 2008

Last Saturday marked the 18th anniversary of Saddam Hussain's invasion, occupation and pillaging of Kuwait - his brotherly and fellow Arab neighbouring country.

August 2, with its indelible sad memories, will be forever marked by the current and future Kuwaiti and Arab generations as the lowest point of Arab solidarity and betrayal of brotherly relations.

The invasion, not only showed that some Arabs betrayed their solemn commitment to Arab unity, but also forced a lasting transformation of the security architecture and a shift in the strategic balance of power in the region for generations to come.

The invasion is marked annually by recalling the horrors that Kuwait went through. The suffering, the martyrs and the human rights issue of hostages, the remains of many are being now discovered in mass graves in Iraq. Although, Kuwait played a leading role in "Operation Iraq Freedom" and has now mended its relations with Iraq's post-Saddam Hussain regime, still there is apprehension at the nature of the new menacing threat that is emanating from Iraq. Kuwaitis fear that an unstable Iraq will serve as as a hotbed for terrorism, sectarianism and ethnic mayhem. There is a real fear of the fragmentation of Iraq and finally, as a failed state with all its negative consequences, it can have an impact on its neighbours. In the latest survey of the World's Failed States Index, Iraq ranks 5th out of 177 countries. Somalia was the worst.

Grievances

There are still some outstanding grievances lingering between Kuwait and Iraq. What haunts Kuwaitis is the belief of many Iraqis that Kuwait belongs to Iraq - historically and geographically. Then there are other issues such as the fate of Kuwaiti hostages, border demarcation, loans, the UN approved compensations, etc. Iraqis' misgivings centre on Kuwait's role in the invasion, sanctions, and unjust border demarcations.

There is no doubt that Kuwait was the main victim of Saddam's blatant invasion. But Kuwait was not alone, there were more victims along the way. The consequences of Saddam's miscalculated and ruinous move have effected not only Iraq and Kuwait, but the Gulf region and the entire Arab world.

We all are still reeling and paying for that misadventure of one man (Saddam) to serve his giant and naked ambitions. Little did he know, when he made that fatal decision on that hot summer day, that it would be the beginning of the end, not only of his dictatorship but of the one-party rule in the country. Moreover, he would have not even imagined that the curse of Kuwait would return to haunt him and lead to his execution by hanging on the last day of 2006. And what is more revealing is the change of the regional status quo in a turbulent region with many matches stoking the powder keg.

Yes, it is the oil, the location, the resources, the foreign investments and the sovereign funds. It is the crossing of the local, regional and international interests which collaborated together in remarkable ways to convince Saddam to take the ultimate risk of occupying Kuwait. His refusal to budge, and underestimate the collective will of the international community, is another example of his gamble to control the region's oil and access to it.

Saddam's decision of occupying Kuwait was a telling example of his autocratic rule, lack of legal channels to take that decision and manifestation of his style of governing in a one-man show regime. His faulty reading and his shallow analysis that Kuwait was too small a fish to mass three-quarters of a million soldiers to liberate it proved to be his nemesis. The international solidarity of the global community to liberate Kuwait was an embarrassing affair for Arab countries, not because of its unprecedented scale, but because it exposed the chinks in the armour of Arab solidarity and the weakness of the so-called "collective Arab defence". Moreover, it divided Arabs into the good ones and the bad ones.

But what could be the lasting impact of the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait, even before the downfall of Saddam's regime, is the change in the balance of power in the region. It manifests itself by the presence of American forces in the Gulf states with permanent military bases that had been rejected earlier by the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states.

Outsourcing security

After the liberation of Kuwait, all the GCC states rely on, what I call as the "imported outsourcing of security". Traumatised by the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, the GCC states signed bilateral security arrangements with the US. Some also signed bilateral security arrangements with other permanent members of the UN Security Council member states.

That seems to derail, or at best delay, any indigenous collective GCC security mechanism among the GCC states, which disbanded its symbolic Peninsula Shield forces a couple of years ago. On the other hand, it leads to militarisation and up-sizing of military procurement and arms sales in billions of dollars. It also resuscitated the UN from its long paralysis, as a victim of the Cold War rivalry, to give its legitimate seal of approval and cover to launch Operation Desert Storm that finally ended the seven months of cruel and wanton occupation of Kuwait.

After 18 long years of that black letter day, we in Kuwait will never forget the consequences wrought upon, not only Kuwaitis but the whole region and the Arab world, by that fatal decision of a dictator. Some questions remain: What if Saddam Hussain had not occupied Kuwait? What if? And what would have happened to him, to Iraq, to Kuwait, to the region, to the US, Iran and to all of the others?

By Abdullah Al Shayji

Gulf News 2008. All rights reserved.