A Re-examination of the First Persian Gulf War and United States Foreign Policy towards Iraq: An Analysis of How Missed Dialogue and Missed Opportunities Changed the Fate of a Region

Abstract

There have been a number of theories pertaining to the First Persian Gulf War (PGWI) including why or how the war started between Iraq and the United States (US) and the subsequent policy fallout in the Middle East. Some historians and scholars lay the blame at the feet of the US for missing several social and regional economic indicators that should have signaled to the West there was something amiss in Baghdad. Others insist it was the despotic military aspirations of Saddam Hussein who ultimately wanted to expand Iraqi influence upon the Arab states and the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in the region. This work reexamines how Hussein may have believed Iraq should be the prime state shaping policy in the region, rather than Western Governments. Comparatively in 1990, there was a stark realization that US foreign policy in the Middle East had become reactive rather than proactive. Such actions became a catalyst toward expediting a destabilizing US foreign policy in the Middle East over the next several decades.