Emergence of the Post-World War I Persian Gulf States

At least twelve of the new political entities that emerged on the Arabian Peninsula after World War I faced problems regarding acceptance of their borders by native inhabitants as well as neighbors. Many traditional tribal and ethnic areas, including regions crossed by nomads, were disrupted by the post-World War I borders. At least twenty-two boundary disputes developed in the region after the war, with armed conflict arising at least twenty-one times and some disputes being settled only to erupt anew. Overlapping claims to grazing land or water, interfamily rivalries, and assertions of historical rights by aggrieved groups all worked against peaceful negotiations. In Iraq's case, the border with Kuwait was one of a number of areas in dispute. Conflicts over the neutral zone between Iraq and Saudi Arabia lasted until 1975, as did border disputes with Iran. The Iraqi-Jordanian border remained in dispute until 1984.¹

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In much of the Persian Gulf the change to nationhood was preceded by a period of more explicit Western control. In Iraq, Britain put down a wartime attempt to sever its control and depose the monarchy. British occupation of Iraq for the duration of the war followed.

The United States too became directly involved in the Gulf as part of its effort to send supplies to the Soviet Union for the war against Germany.⁹ When the United States Army occupied much of Iran and set up the Persian Gulf command in 1942, ignorance of the region was widespread among Americans, policy makers as well as the public. The War Department had no maps of Persia when the decision was made to move into the country, and the State Department's Division of Near-Eastern Affairs had a staff of thirteen, only three of whom spoke some regional language. Initially there seemed little reason for concern. At the time, the United States produced over 60 percent of the world's oil, and the Gulf region, including Iran, Iraq, and Arabian Peninsula, pumped only 5 percent. Wartime demands for oil began the long-term shift of the industry's center of gravity from the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean to the Middle East, and Americans were quick to adjust.¹⁰

As U.S. interest in the region grew, European control began to wane. Both the winners and losers in the war were too weary to contest the Middle East's drive for complete independence. Syria gained freedom from France in 1945. Jordan kept the Hashemite monarchy but broke its tie with Britain in 1946. In the most dramatic and traumatic act of nation-building of the period, the Jewish state of Israel emerged from the shambles of the Palestine mandate in 1948. The British decline in the region, under way from about the start of World War II, was gathering momentum.¹¹

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The Rising Tide of Nationalism

Britain withdrew from Egypt in 1954, and two years later President Gamal Abdul Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal, triggering an ill-conceived effort in 1956 by Britain and France, along with Israel, to destabilize and overthrow the Egyptian government. The Suez crisis may have taught Western powers much about the volatility of the Middle East, but it also confirmed Middle Eastern suspicions of foreign imperialism.

Also in 1956 the youthful Hashemite King Hussein of Jordan dismissed the British commander of his army. In 1958 Egypt and Syria formed the short-lived United Arab Republic, a brief experiment in Pan-Arabism. The revolutionary tide reached Iraq in the same year. A bloody military uprising overthrew Hussein's relatives and revoked the alliance with Britain.¹³

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The 1958 coup by elements of the Iraqi armed forces known as "the Free Officers" brought Brigadier Abd al-Karim Qasim to power. Qasim replaced a regime that had never built viable political institutions to sustain its rule and depended, much like the late Ottoman regime, on the army and bureaucracy as well as family and personal ties for support. Although the work of a small group, the coup reflected widespread discontent with the monarchy's foreign policy, particularly the strong ties to the West and the lack of domestic reform. The new regime's agenda became clear when it demanded major revisions in the nation's relationship with the Iraq Petroleum Company.¹⁴

In Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East, oil became the focus of the Arab nationalist tide of the 1950s and 1960s. A 1957 conference of Arab oil experts broached the possibility of an organization of oil exporting states. Three years later, in September 1960, those states created the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) at a meeting in Baghdad, marking the start of a new period of growing assertiveness among oil producers in the Middle East.¹⁵ Nationalizations of oil industries in Libya and Algeria followed as producing countries everywhere took on dominant roles in their relations with oil companies, a transition that climaxed in the OPEC embargo of oil to the West during the October 1973 Arab-Israeli War.

By the 1960s the political order established by Britain in the Middle East had fallen apart. The British had created an imposing institutional facade but had not put down many deep roots. Perhaps their most lasting legacy was an accelerated drive for modernization, financed by the revenues from the oil industry that they had helped nurture. With an overall colonial policy that envisioned gradual conversion of colonies to membership in the Commonwealth, the British had also encouraged indigenous involvement in public administration and created the context in which the nationalist movements could develop. However, this gradualist approach ultimately foundered in the face of Arab and Jewish nationalism. In 1969, already long preoccupied with its economic problems, Britain announced its intent to withdraw its remaining forces from the Middle East. Two years later, the last British troops left Aden at the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula, leaving the region devoid of the sometimes unwelcome stabilizing power that Great Britain had provided.¹⁶

The Qasim Regime and the Kuwaiti Border

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The initial association of the United States in Arab minds with the principles of self-determination and anticolonialism helped establish American credibility in the Middle East. That early goodwill faded, however, as American support of Israel became evident. Arab states lost confidence in the evenhandedness of the United States and came to view it as an enemy.

American economic interests in Middle Eastern oil remained largely in private hands. The need for direct government involvement did not become clear until profound changes took place in the oil industry, including the final wave of nationalizations that followed the dramatic 1973 price increases. The United States needed assurance of regular supplies and

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sought to channel the huge oil profits into areas that enhanced the American fiscal stability and prosperity. After Britain withdrew from the region, the United States adopted a "twin pillars" policy, encouraging the development of regional power centers in Saudi Arabia and Iran, which would be relied on to maintain stability and protect American interests.²⁷ The new American policy also served another purpose-to block Soviet influence in the region.

The United States and Saudi Arabian Defense

The work of the United States Army Corps of Engineers was singularly important to the development of that military relationship. The association dated from the last year of the war, when the corps built a military

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airfield at Dhahran, and gradually solidified with completion of massive construction programs that extended into the 1980s. Although mainly military, these efforts also included civil projects such as the facilities for the national television network and the Dhahran civil air terminal. The terminal project in particular, a striking piece of work that won the American Institute of Architects' first honors in 1963 for designer Minoru Yamasaki, established with the Saudi government the corps' reputation for quality engineering and construction. The Engineer Assistance Agreement of 24 May 1965 cemented that relationship and provided the basis for subsequent Corps of Engineers work in the kingdom.²⁹

In the 1970s the relationship changed from that of client and patron to a complex interdependence. The Saudis needed American support for their security as well as help in development projects; the United States needed Saudi cooperation regarding the supply and price of oil and the recycling of Saudi oil profits. Early in the decade the Saudis, with one eye on the power vacuum created by the British withdrawal from the Gulf, asked for a special American military mission to study projects related to national security and make recommendations for future assistance. In response, the United States conducted several studies of Saudi defense requirements and began the sale of modern fighters to the Saudi air force. Other large military sales programs followed, as did modernization and training programs, their costs surging along with Saudi oil profits.³⁰

As part of the vastly expanded program of assistance, the United States endorsed a Saudi military strategy that envisioned permanent deployment of large portions of Saudi forces in elaborate military cities near threatened frontiers. They consisted of command and control sites, airfields, hangars, depots, maintenance and repair shops, and elaborate cantonments for soldiers, their families, and supporting civilians. The sites included Khamis Mushayt, close to Yemen; Tabuk in the north near Jordan and Israel; and Hafar al Batin, next to Kuwait and Iraq.³¹

The last of those, initially called A1 Batin Military City but later renamed for King Khalid, began in 1972. Originally intended for three brigades and a tactical airfield and with an estimated price tag of $9 billion, it was the most costly construction project ever undertaken by the Corps of Engineers. In the 1980s declining oil profits forced reduction of the base to two-brigade size and postponed construction of the airfield. However, when the corps turned the city over to the Ministry of Defense and Aviation in 1986, the final cost was still $7 billion.³²

The relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia was based on mutual but not identical interests. Saudi survival depended in large measure on the kingdom's ties to the United States, but the government's specific concerns were complex. The Saudis wanted visible American help through the sale of sophisticated weapons and treatment that indicated that they were as important as America's other major regional allies, Israel and Egypt. The major menace to Saudi Arabia came from the Gulf, where both Iraq and Iran were potentially formidable foes.

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The Saudis counted on Iran to check Iraq and the United States to curb Iran. The Soviet Union represented a more remote danger. When it came to the security of Saudi oil the interests of both the United States and Saudi Arabia were nearly identical.³³

The Carter Doctrine

On 23 January 1980, President Jimmy Carter announced what became known as the Carter Doctrine. In the traditional State of the Union speech before Congress, Carter declared that "an attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force."³⁵ Although such a position had long been implied by American support of Saudi Arabia, the speech marked a turning point.

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Most of those differences appeared to have been put to rest by the Algiers Treaty in 1975. This agreement settled the border dispute over the Shatt al Arab waterway in Iran's favor and ended the Shah's support of Kurdish insurgents in Iraq. At the same time, Iraq renounced a long-standing claim to the southwestern portion of Iran, an area called Arabistan by Iraq and Khuzestan by Iran, and recognized Iranian control of the disputed Gulf islands.

Saddam Hussein, already a dominant force in the Ba'th party, took over the presidency in 1979, the same year that the fundamentalist Shiite regime came to power in Iran. The Iranian revolutionaries revived past disputes and added a new one, Iranian incitement of Shiite discontent in Iraq. When the Iranian monarchy was overthrown, Iraq

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denounced the Algiers Treaty and demanded restoration of the eastern bank of the Shatt al Arab as the border. After a period of mutual sporadic border violations and skirmishes, Iraq attacked its neighbor in earnest in the summer of 1980.³⁹

The war, extremely ill conceived, resulted directly from President Saddam Hussein's poor political judgment. The situation could have been contained, as it had been in the past, and Iraqi interests could have been promoted short of war. But Iran appeared weak and disorganized, and the Iraqi president thought he could easily win. His miscalculation of his opponent and corresponding overestimate of his own ability to impose a solution proved disastrous. It was exactly the kind of error that a highly personalized leadership lacking institutional checks and balances was inclined to make.⁴⁰

The Reagan Approach

Reagan's military plans for Gulf security were more ambitious than those of his predecessor. The Reagan administration regarded the lack of an actual American military presence as a tacit invitation to Soviet intervention. The refusal of the Persian Gulf States to accept American military forces frustrated the Reagan government, so the new administration strengthened the rapid deployment concept with significant expenditures for military construction in the Middle East and nearby areas. In the first Reagan administration, the United States spent nearly $1 billion on construction and support facilities, in Morocco, at Lajes Field in the Azores, and on the Indian Ocean island base of Diego Garcia. Reagan also made the first official assignment of forces to the rapid deployment force on 24 April 1981 and gave it a prominent place in the defense establishment.⁴²

While the Carter administration had buried the rapid deployment force within the U.S. Army Readiness Command, Reagan gave it visibility and prominence. In October 1981 the connection to the Readiness Command ended, and the task force became a separate command reporting directly to the secretary of defense through the Joint Chiefs of Staff. One month later, Exercise BRIGHT STAR 82 showed the growth of plans and forces, testing a broad range of tactical and logistical capabilities. On 1 January 1983, the force became one of six U.S. multiservice commands. Renamed United States Central Command, its specified theater of

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operations included Southwest Asia and northeast Africa. Its commander was given charge of nearly all American military activity in that part of the world, including planning for contingencies, coordinating joint exercises involving American and other forces, and administering security assistance. The command oversaw the airborne warning and control system (AWACS), the tanker aircraft at Riyadh, and the Navy's five-ship Middle East Force. Its total deployment potential stood at 300,000.⁴³

Despite the increase in the size and capability of the deployable force, there were limits to the American ability to move its forces overseas. The United States still needed bases and facilities in the Persian Gulf, and, although it alone in the West could contribute significantly to the defense of the Gulf, it could not transfer a large combat force on short notice. Throughout the 1980s, Central Command planners emphasized helping friendly nations in the Middle East defend themselves through training, arms sales, and military liaison as well as joint maneuvers. The force reassured countries like Saudi Arabia, which rejected an overt American presence but needed to know that support was available in an emergency.⁴⁴

The success of a rapid transfer of U.S. troops to the Persian Gulf depended on Saudi acceptance and support. Whether the threat came from the Soviet Union or an aggressive neighbor such as Iran or Iraq, access to Dhahran and King Khalid Military City were necessary for any major deployment. Bases at Diego Garcia and elsewhere provided peripheral facilities but were too remote to use as operational centers for the defense of the oil facilities of the upper and central Persian Gulf.⁴⁵

The Gulf Cooperation Council

The Arab states around the Gulf generally backed Iraq. Saudi Arabia and Kuwait were particularly outspoken in their support. Both contributed substantially to the $40 to $50 billion that all the Gulf States provided Iraq. In addition, both allowed Iraq to use their ports for arms shipments and sold oil on behalf of Iraq. Saudi Arabia also allowed Iraq to build and use a pipeline through its territory.⁴⁶

Although Kuwait was among the most generous contributors to the Iraqi cause, there were some things it would not do. Early in the war, Iraq renewed a proposal it had made in 1975 for 99-year leases on the islands of Bubiyan and Warbah. Kuwait refused. In 1984 Saddam Hussein scaled down his request to a 20-year lease in exchange for an agreement to a definitive border. Once more Kuwait declined.⁴⁷

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Despite their open support of Iraq during the early stages of the war, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia understood that in the long run Iraq threatened their security. With this threat in mind, they led the effort to create the Gulf Cooperation Council, a regional defense alliance that was established in May 1981. In addition to Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, members included Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, a confederation made up of the sheikhdoms of Abu Dhabi, Ajman, Dubai, Fujiera, Ra's al Khaymah, Sharjah, and Umm al Qaywayn. Iraq, which in 1974 had proclaimed itself "the most important and advanced Arab country in the area" and consequently protector of the Gulf "against dangers and encroachments," sought, but was denied, membership. The council tried to contain the war between its powerful neighbors and ultimately bring both sides to the bargaining table.⁴⁸

Militarily, the Saudi armed forces formed the key to the council's limited defensive capabilities. The kingdom was by far the largest and most powerful of the six members. With oil reserves and revenues that dwarfed those of the others, it had the largest armed forces and good lines of communications. However, its military prowess was only imposing in contrast to that of the other members. A lack of manpower severely limited the capabilities of the Saudis, although the military infrastructure built under Corps of Engineers contracts compensated somewhat by enabling the Saudis to take advantage of the most technically advanced weapons.⁴⁹

While Iran and Iraq slugged it out, the Gulf Cooperation Council progressed toward its goal of creating an effective regional security structure. Despite the pointed rejection of the Iraqi application, the members continued to view fundamentalist Iran as the more immediate threat. Saudi Arabia and Kuwait continued in the forefront as providers of material aid to Iraq.⁵⁰

The council expressed interest in cooperation with the United States but still wanted to keep actual forces at arm's length. Member states did not agree with the United States regarding the nature of the threat to regional stability. The United States emphasized the Soviet peril, at least until the middle of the decade, when American policy makers began to put more stress on strengthening the Arab side of the Gulf against a potential Iranian threat to the flow of oil. The council always worried more about its powerful and quarrelsome neighbors and Israel than about the Soviet Union.⁵¹

The United States and the Iran-Iraq War

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the support of a Nicaraguan insurgency dear to the heart of President Reagan, casting considerable doubt on American purpose and reliability.⁵² The United States also sold AWACS to the Saudis and began joint planning for modernization of the Saudi air force, which had started shortly after the fall of the Shah of Iran.⁵³

In 1988, when Kuwait responded to Iranian attacks on its shipping by asking the superpowers for protection, it found the United States eager to provide assistance and reassurance of its steadfast support. To restore its position in the Gulf, the United States agreed to reflag and convoy Kuwaiti ships. Protection of the flow of oil was in any case still a paramount American interest, and President Reagan affirmed his commitment to safeguard Gulf exports. Along with the reflagging went a major American naval deployment to protect the tankers.⁵⁴

The United States and Saudi Arabia maintained their close military relationship throughout the Iran-lraq war. American diplomats continued to enjoy easy access to the ruling family, although they never convinced the Saudis to agree formally to American access to their bases or abandon their opposition to the stationing of American soldiers in the kingdom. The official Saudi position was that both superpowers should keep their forces out of the Persian Gulf. The Saudis, however, never objected to the American naval contingent in Bahrain and other period-

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ic displays of American might in threatening situations. Limited American deployments, among them minesweepers, operational aircraft, and the AWACS, were acceptable.⁵⁵

Reinforcement by U.S. forces in an emergency was always a basic component of Saudi defense planning, albeit only in event of a clear and immediate threat. In fact, to many observers, Saudi installations appeared plainly overbuilt, as if actually intended only for other forces. Saudi bases, with their modern infrastructure and service facilities, could accept an American deployment on very short notice. Those bases, combined with the large quantities of American supplies and equipment purchased ostensibly for Saudi use, ultimately constituted the virtual equivalent of American bases in Saudi Arabia, albeit without the American personnel needed to translate their potential into actual combat power.

The Saudi military buildup was principally oriented on aviation facilities. The Saudis had the largest and some of the most modern air bases in the region, with American contractor employees servicing their equipment and American-trained technicians among their own ground crews. Although rejecting any combined maneuvers, they recognized the need for cooperation with a Central Command deployment when necessary. Short of that necessity, however, they insisted that cooperation remain based on Saudi military buildups with American arms and technical assistance. ⁵⁶

Saudi purchases from the United States did facilitate a possible deployment of Central Command forces to Southwest Asia. Any expeditionary force would gain an advantage if its weapons, ammunition, and parts were compatible to the equipment used by a potential host nation. The United States achieved a large measure of interchangeability through military assistance to the Gulf States, despite occasional frustration at the hands of American supporters of Israel, who saw the provision of any arms and equipment to an Arab nation in a different light.⁵⁷

From the Iran-Iraq War to the Invasion of Kuwait

In spite of the continued support of Iraq, there was a growing perception in the United States that the major near-term threats to the states of the southern Persian Gulf and to Western oil supplies came not from the Soviet Union but from the Gulf region itself. The Iran-lraq war had

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shown that both combatants had the resources to sustain massive forces, even in the face of sizable losses. Both now had the experience of a decade of war to go with traditions of political instability. Meanwhile, the Iranian revolution represented a constant danger not only to Iraq, but the southern Gulf States and the industrial West as well.⁵⁹

The end of the war left Iraq both remarkably strong and desperatelyweak. By regional standards, the Iraqi armed forces appeared formidable, and the war seemed to have forged a strong feeling of national cohesion. Iraq believed that it had won the war and defended Arab interests against the traditional Persian threat. Iraq also saw itself as a major oil power with a dominant role in the region. At the same time, it had piled up a debt estimated as high as $70 billion. The $5 to $6 billion in interest that the government paid annually consumed nearly one-third of its oil revenues.⁶⁰

The war crippled Iraq's economic development program and stifled the social mobility that had attended it. The years of fighting left much of the nation's industrial capacity weakened and its ability to export oil severely impaired. Economically, the war also diminished Iraq's international position and forced the regime into a position of dependence on its wealthy neighbors. That reliance actually represented a continuation of the relationship that had sustained Iraq through the war, although Iraq was convinced that it had not received adequate support. Iraqi resentment focused largely on wealthy Kuwait, which held territory that Iraq coveted and considered its own.⁶¹

Although the states of the southern Gulf did not appreciate the depth of Iraqi bitterness at their supposedly inadequate support, they were not blind to the threat implicit in Iraq's postwar military strength and confidence. The Saudis knew that the border with Iraq was ideal for armor operations and that the entire Arabian Peninsula was vulnerable to attack from the northeast. Major Saudi oil facilities were only 200 miles away. King Khalid Military City, with its two armored brigades, provided only limited security, and other Gulf Cooperation Council members had no military forces of consequence. Any assault on Kuwait might easily become the first stage of a two-phase attack on the rest of the peninsula.⁶²

The United States shared Saudi Arabia's concerns. Kuwait, the door to the entire oil-producing region, was very vulnerable. Threats to its stability, either from external or internal pressures, would have wide ramifications, endangering the flow of oil and the economic health of the industrial West.⁶³

In the two years after the fighting between Iran and Iraq ended, Iraq increased its pressure on Kuwait. The war had left the Shatt al Arab approach to Al Basrah and the city itself a shambles. The opening of the waterway to shipping remained in the distant future. Iraq again turned its attention to the border that it shared with Kuwait. In addition to demands for compensation for revenues allegedly lost due to Kuwaiti oil sales in excess of OPEC quotas and for oil pumped from oil

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