This year, the Historic Security Council will be discussing the Persian Gulf War, 1990-1991. The committee will commence on July 22nd, as tensions rise in the middle east due to the imminent invasion of Kuwait by Saddam Hussein. Iraq threatens to annex a neighboring country and assert control over most of the worlds oil resources. As the first conflict in the post cold war era, in a world dependent on oil from the Persian Gulf, the Iraqi aggression posed a threat to the prospect of a better, safer world in the wake of the cold war. As members of the Security Council, delegates will be expected to find a peaceful solution to the crisis, and prevent the breakout of war.NIXON’S TWIN PILLAR POLICY
After the British Government announced its intention to withdraw all troops from the gulf region in 1968, the responsibility to maintain regional peace to ensure the flow of cheap oil to the markets and to reduce Soviet influence in the region fell upon the US government. The Nixon administration created the ‘Twin Pillars Policy’, effectively allowing them to rely on Iran, and to a much lesser extent Saudi Arabia, to maintain regional peace in exchange for American arms and technical guidance. This structure allowed the Americans to avoid direct intervention and military interference, while Iran became a mediating influence that protected the interests of the United States in the region.
IRANIAN REVOLUTION 1979
From the early 1950s to the 1970s, the Iranian economy was rapidly expanding. Most of it was directed toward high-cost projects and programs by the government. Social discontent mounted in the 1970s, culminating in the revolution at the end. The petroleum revenues continued to be a major source of income for Iran in the 1970s, but world monetary instability and fluctuation in the Western oil consumption threatened the country’s economy. There was a decade of massive economic growth, heavy government spending and a boom in oil prices led to high rates of inflation and the stagnation of Iranian buyers. In addition to the ever-mounting economic difficulties, the socio-political repression by the regime of Mohammad Pahlavi increased in the 1970s. Any and all opposition parties like the National Front were outlawed and marginalized. All protests were met with censorship by the media, harassment, detention and for most civilians taking part, torture was commonplace. For most of the time, the secular intellectuals were fascinated by the populist appeal of Ayatollah Khomeini. It was because of his preaching of the evils of the Pahlavi regime, and accusations against the Shah of irreligion and subservience to foreign powers that the citizens began to think, that with the help of the ulama (religious scholars), the Shah could be overthrown and a successful government set up. The Shah’s dependence on the US, his close ties with Israel and his regime’s ill-considered economic policies fuelled the potency of dissident rhetoric with the masses.
In January 1978, instigated by what were apparently slanderous remarks against Khomeini made by a Tehran newspaper, thousands of young madrassas took to the streets, followed by thousands of Iranian youth – mostly unemployed immigrants from the countryside. They began to protest the regime and the Shah, weakened by cancer and stunned by the sudden outpour of hostility against him, assumed the protests were part of an international conspiracy against him. Many people were killed by the government forces in anti-regime protests, serving only to fuel the violence in the country. Khomeini coordinated the upsurge of opposition, demanding the Shah’s abdication and in January 1979 – the Shah and his family fled Iran. The Regency Council and the Prime Minister Bakhtiar appointed by the Shah was unable to bring into effect a compromise with Khomeini or the National Front. On the first of April, Khomeini declared Iran an Islamic Republic.
SOVIET INVASION OF AFGHANISTAN
In 1979, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan by sending in 30,000 troops in support of the Afghan Communist Government in its conflict with the anticommunist Islamic guerillas, the Mujahideen. Although the exact reasons for the invasion remain unclear, it was widely regarded that the invasion was the first step by the Soviet Union in a series of attempts to control the oil flow from the Gulf region, and to prevent the spread of the Islamic revolution that had begun in Iran.
CARTER DOCTRINE
After the Shah of Iran was overthrown in 1979, the United States, which had heavily relied on Iran to maintain stability, now lacked the military strength to protect its interests in the region. Furthermore, revolutionary leader Ayatollah Khomeini, strongly opposed the United States and wanted to overthrow the regimes in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and other gulf Arab states. These events coupled with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, propelled the Carter administration to dramatically change its foreign policy in 1980, by introducing the Carter Doctrine. The Carter doctrine recognized the Persian Gulf as a region of strategic and economic importance. President Jimmy Carter announced that the United States would employ military force if necessary, to prevent any world power from destabilizing the Gulf region. By 1983, the federal government implemented the Rapid Deployment Force (RDF), later renamed U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM). Thus the United States laid the foundation for its naval, terrestrial and aerial military infrastructure in the Gulf region.
IRAN-IRAQ WAR
The major war in the latter half of the twentieth century between Ruhollah Khomeini and Saddam Hussein laid the foundation for the Persian War of 1990. Post the 1979 Iranian revolution, Iraq tried to take advantage of the chaos ensuing in Iran. However, the invaders were quickly repelled and Iran regained most of the lost territories by 1982. This attempt at the encroachment of Iranian territory pushed Iran on to the offensive for the next six years, right up until the end of the war. During the war, Iraq was regarded by the West and the Soviet Union as a counter-measure to the post-revolutionary Iran. The Soviet Union wanted to keep its alliance with Iraq going and had hoped to use the threat of reducing arms supplies to Iraq as leverage for forming their alliance. They were caught unawares by Saddam’s threats to find new arms suppliers in the West and China if they did not provide him with the weapons he wanted. The United States lacked relations with either of the warring nations due to the Iranian Revolution and the Iran hostage crisis from November, 1979 to January, 1981 and because of Iraq’s alliance with the Soviet Union as well as their hostility towards Israel. Behaving as the harbingers of peace, the United States made an outreach to Iraq beginning with the restorations of diplomatic relations in 1984, seeing Iran’s success of repelling the Iraqi invasion and Khomeini’s refusal to end the war in 1982. To keep Iran away from Soviet influence and protect the other Gulf states from threat of Iranian expansion, the US began to provide support to Iraq. It is highly debated in the global community as to whether the direct combat that took place between Iran and the US was for the benefit of Iraq or for separate issues between the US and Iran. They supported Iraq by providing technological aid, intelligence, chemical and biological warfare technology and military equipment, and satellite intelligence. Over 30 countries provided support to either Iran, Iraq or both of them; the Stockholm International Peace Institute showed that over 90% of Iraq’s arms and ammunitions were provided by the Soviet Union, France and China together. Both nations set up large, extensive clandestine networks through which they obtained weapons over the course of the war. Iraq also made extensive use of shell corporations (front companies) in order to hide their acquisitions received from their eleven allied nations. The UNSC made an attempt at brokering peace but was left hanging by the Iranians. They claimed that, seeing as the UN did not come to Iran’s aid to repel the Iraqi invasion, the UN was subtly favoured towards Iraq. Whilst also combating Iran directly, the US also indirectly supplied weapons to Iran via a complex and illegal programme known as the Iran-Contra affair. These secret sales were to help secure the release of hostages being held in Lebanon as well as to help the Contras rebel group stationed in Nicaragua; this ultimately resulted in a major scandal. The other major supplier to Iran was North Korea, who also acted as a third party in weapons deals between the Iran and the Communist bloc. The other major supporters of Iran were Libya and Syria, breaking Arab solidarity. Yugoslavia, Spain and Portugal sold weapons to both countries. Neither side was aided militarily by Turkey, but both sides enjoyed Turkish civilian trade during the course of the conflict.
REASONS FOR INVASION OF KUWAIT
LAND DISPUTE
Historically, Kuwait belonged to Basra, a province of the Ottoman Empire. After the defeat of the Ottoman Empire during World War I, the British unified the three provinces- Mosul, Baghdad and Basra to form Iraq. Since Iraq gained independence in 1932, it has claimed Kuwait as part of its rightful territory. In 1961, just weeks after Kuwait gained its independence, the British were forced to place Iraq under severe military and political pressure to deter them from invading the Kuwaiti borders. Once again in 1973, units of the Iraqi military occupied a narrow strip along the Iraq-Kuwait border, under the guise of protection against an alleged invasion by Iran. Iraqi forces remained there for several years despite opposition from Kuwait. Furthermore, by annexing Kuwait, Iraq would gain control over the islands of Warba and Bubiyan. Owing to their location, this would give Iraq access to major portions of the Gulf coastline, which was strategically of vital importance, as Iraq was virtually landlocked.
ECONOMIC WARFARE AND OIL DISPUTES
The 8-year war between Iran and Iraq had a devastating effect on the economy, and left Iraq under crushing debts to her neighbors, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. These countries, which lacked the military infrastructure to protect their borders from revolutionary Iran, had loaned Saddam huge amounts during the war. Estimates suggest that Iraq was 80-100 billion dollars in debt after the war with Iran ended. Furthermore, the shaky Iraqi economy could not successfully reintegrate the millions of soldiers left unemployed after the war. By annexing Kuwait, Saddam Hussein would be able to forgo war debts and take control over more than 20% of the worlds oil resources.
In May 1990, at the Arab League Summit conference, Saddam directly accused Kuwait and other Gulf nations of ‘economic warfare’ against Iraq by exceeding OPEC oil production quotas and subsequently lowering oil prices. Saddam also accused Kuwait of slant drilling into the Rumailian oil fields, over which Iraq and Kuwait had joint claim. In a statement to American ambassador April Glaspie, Saddam stated that, “The price of oil at one stage dropped to 12 dollars a barrel and a reduction of $6 billion to $7 billion in the modest Iraq budget is a disaster.”
At a meeting of the oil ministers in Jeddah on July 10th 1990, Kuwait agreed to abide by OPEC oil production quotas, but Saddam refused to compromise. Instead, he threatened military action against Kuwait if they did not agree to his demands: to return 2.4 billion dollars as compensation for stolen oil from Rumailia oil fields; to write off all of Iraqs war debts and provide Iraq with financial assitance; to raise oil prices upto 22$ a barrel and abide by OPEC oil quotas. Although the Kuwaiti delegation appeared ready to compromise, Saddam had already begun preparing to invade.