The US and the Iraq Conflicts

The conflict that is currently ongoing in Iraq can be traced back to the period of Saddam’s leadership. The ISIS insists on rebuilding a caliphate. This is a sentiment that has been shared by many of the leaders including Saddam Hussein. The conflict between the ISIS and the US could be traced to the first Persian Gulf War (Post, 1991). Before this war, the US had maintained a healthy relationship between itself and Iraq despite the difficulties that came about from dealing with a dictator. The Gulf War was however not advised by the US and the US decided to contest the idea. This paper pursues the progress of the US and Iraq relationship so as to get a better understanding of the current conflict involving the US and the ISIS.

The Rise to Power of Saddam Hussein

Saddam Hussein was born in 1937 in a small town known as Tikrit along river Tigris. He later joined the Iraqi Baath party. The Iraqi Baath party was a sprinter group of a larger movement known as Baathism (Post, 1991). This is a movement that is intent to unite the Arab world into one powerful state.

In 1959 Saddam Hussein along with his party members tried to overthrow the government. This attempt however failed and he escaped to Egypt where he studied law. The Baath party succeeded in overthrowing the government in 1963 (Shields, 2003). He returned to Iraq and got a position in the Baath party through the influence of his cousin Ahmed Hassan Bakr. They were however thrown out of power within a year and Saddam was thrown to prison. While in prison he reviewed the reasons as to why they were not able to stay in power. He felt that they had over dependent on the military to support them (Wheeler, 2004). He later escaped out of prison after two years and became the leader in charge of organizing the security of Baath party.

In 1968 the Baath party overthrew the government and Ahmed Hassan became the president of Iraq. Saddam became deputy chairman of the party’s Revolutionary Command Council. Saddam rose to become the most powerful reader in the Iraq government by controlling the forces that had helped them to get into power (Wheeler, 2004). While keeping most of the Baathist violent actions secret, the government often displayed such acts in public to arouse fear and loyalty to the government.

Slowly, Saddam eventually started getting rid supporters of Ahmed Hassan and his own rivals, Saddam eventually forced Hassan out of power and became president. Following his entry into power, Hussein a very violent leader and saw to the murder of over 500 individuals he thought would come in the way of his leadership (Shields, 2003).

Iran – Iraq War (1980-88)

After Saddam Hussein got into power in 1979, there arose conflicts between Iraq and Iran. In September of 1980, when there arose small skirmishes at the border, Iraq launched fully fledged attacks on Iraq (Abdulghani, 1984). The conflict was over the Iranian revolution which had placed Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini into power. Ayatollah had plans of extending his ideology into other Middle East countries including Iraq. At the beginning of the attacks, Iraq showed substantial progress and Iraq captured the port city of Khorramshahr by end 1980 (Abdulghani, 1984). However, as the war progressed, the Iranian forces proved strong and recovered the captured portions by the end of 1982 (Ashton & Gibson, 2013). The declaration by Khomeini that Iranian forces would not stop the war until the Saddam was toppled along with the force the Iranian army mounted made Saddam to result to chemical weapons. Gradually, Iran started to recover portions of Iraqi land and the Iraqi army forces could not mount sufficient resistance. At one point, however, Iran troops attacked the oil tankers which belonged to Kuwait. This necessitated the involvement of various Western nations including the US. Iran got into difficulties obtaining weapons from then on. Khomeini opted to accept this ceasefire option as had been offered by the UN.

At this point, it is notable that the war was funded by many nations including the US supported the Iraq-Iran war. During this conflict, the US supported Iraq including militarily. The main reason this happened was because the US viewed Saddam as the saner leader capable of establishing stability in the Middle East (Ashton & Gibson, 2013). On the other hand, Khomeini seemed capable of uniting the Middle East countries into one Arab state that could have formed a front against the west.

 US relations with Iraq: A Theoretical Perspective

The relations of the US and Iraq prior to 2001 is best related through the realism theory. Most of the relationship that existed was for the mutual benefit of the two countries. In the early years of Saddam’s leadership, he got a lot of backing from the US. Mostly, this was because of the potential benefits that existed between the two countries (Statements et al., n.d.). The US government feared that the failure to support the Iraqi government would lead to Iraqi government adopting the communism form of government which was adopted by the USSR. The communism form of government is based on all property belonging to the government and the citizens benefitting equally from them in theory. If this happened, there was a likelihood that the US would lose especially in regard to its interest on oil deposits in Iraq.

In the early days of Iraq, the US ensured that it was on the same page with the Iraqi government. The Iraqi government on the other hand understood the power of the US was enormous and did not directly threaten the US security for fear that this would lead to the removal of the Iraqi leadership and a war that had Iraq as the clear loser (Statements et al., n.d.). On the contrary, Iraq used the US as the provider of security and arms. This theory shows a situation of self preservation for the individual nations.

The first Persian Gulf War (January 1991 – “Operation Desert Storm”)

The gulf war was another wrong decision that Saddam made to go to war. The gulf war is a war that arose between the Iraq and Kuwait. Saddam’s decision to go to war was motivated by the need to gain economic and territorial gains at the expense of Kuwait especially in the wake of the losses that the country had undergone during the 8 years of war (Pyles & Shulman, 1995). The US mounted pressure on Iraq by taking advantage of the relatively stable relationship that existed between US and Iraq. George H. W. Bushed tried political and economic incentives to lure Hussein from the decision of going to war (Gitlin, 2009). Saddam’s decision to get into a full-scale war with Kuwait in September proved the efforts of the US government futile.

The US government decided to contest Saddam’s move to go to war on two fronts. The first move was a deterrent move and involved placing US troops along the Saudi Arabia border to prevent Iraqi forces from moving beyond Kuwait and into Saudi Arabia. Second, the US placed its troops on the Iraqi-Kuwait border encourage the Iraqi forces to abandon the Kuwait. When Iraqi forces were not withdrawn, the US launched Operation Desert Storm (Pyles & Shulman, 1995).

Operation Desert Storm was launched in launched in January 1991 (Pyles & Shulman, 1995). It involved launching aerial assaults on Iraqi communication and political targets as well as the Iraqi forces.  This was then followed by a ground attack that entirely liberated Kuwait. The US however made a decision immediately thereafter to withdraw its troops from Iraq rather than going ahead to remove the Iraqi government into power. Instead, the US government gave assistance to the Sunni elites of Iraq to try and start a rebellion within Iraq to topple Saddam. This however failed as the other groups rejected the idea.

The relationship between the US and Iraq became sour from that moment onwards. The US installed troops on the northern and southern sides to watch over the country (Gitlin, 2009). The US also persuaded the UN to maintain all financial restrictions that had placed over Iraq during the gulf war until Iraq complied with all resolutions of the UN.

The Sanctions and UN Resolutions

The sanctions that were imposed against Iraq were extraordinary; they formed the mainly comprehensive economic sanctions that had ever been imposed by the Security Council against any nation subsequent to the cold-war (Wallensteen & Staibano, 2004). Of course this was in combination with the decimation of Iraq’s military along with civil infrastructure in the course of ‘Operation Desert Storm’ during 1991. Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990 August 2^nd and initiated occupation. He acquired control of immense globe’s oil supply portions. Iraq’s brutal aggression into Kuwait surprised and appalled the international community.  During the same invasion day, the United Nations Security Council initiated its very first of the numerous resolutions with regards to Saddam’s illegal aggression act. The UN Security Council Resolution UNSCR 660 which denounced Iraq’s Kuwait invasion (UN, 2000).

UNSCR 660 demanded immediate withdrawal of Iraq forces from Kuwait back to their original positions on 1990August 1^st. However, Saddam ignored UNSCR 660 and persisted on Kuwait’s illegal occupation which extended global human suffering.  He successfully usurped the legitimate authority of Kuwait government and announced a ‘comprehensive and external union’ referred to as Iraq-Kuwait merger (UN, 2000). He additionally proclaimed Kuwait’s annexation to become the nineteenth Iraq province clearly announcing to the world that he possessed no intentions to vacate Kuwait. Indeed, Saddam gave up his Iran acquired territory to focus on defeating the Western military forces which were assembling in Saudi Arabia. Nonetheless, responding to Saddam’s military threat thousands of Western troops were deployed within Saudi Arabia to guard its oil fields form Saddam’s incursion in that region. With Iraq’s persistent occupation of Kuwait, the Security Council saw that Saddam was not ready to ready from Kuwait (Wallensteen & Staibano, 2004).

The Security Council on August 6^th 1990 initiated UNSCR 661 that levied harsh economic sanctions towards Iraq. The sanctions comprised of freezing all abroad positioned assets linked to Iraq and Kuwait and a total ban of imports and exports trade with regard to both Iraq and Kuwait (UN, 2000).  This was enforced by a Sanctions Committee formed to supervise the implementation concerning the Res. 661 sanctions of 1990. Additional measures that were comprised of naval interdiction along with a ban of flights in and out of Iraq contained in Res. 678 of 1990. Subsequent to US-operated military operation against Iraq, afterwards the Security Council established resolution 687 of 1991 which described the peace terms.

Among the primary aspects contained in Resolution 687 – apart from the cease fire accord, the universal mission observer along with border demarcation exercise- was to carry on the prevailing sanctions against Iraq regime to ensure the nation’s compliance towards the disarmament requirements (UN, 2000). There existed no specific restriction directed towards the Iraq army (apart from missiles possessing ranges greater than 150 kilometers), however strict regulations were established with regard to Iraq’s capacity to purchase, possess and create mass destruction weapons. The Resolution 687 gave details concerning the destruction and damaging of every such capacity. Due to this reason a unique commission (UNSCOM) was initiated. IAEA was awarded an inspection role.

Certainly, the resolution provided clarity indicating that sanctions along with measures (mainly the prohibition of the Iraq oil purchase) were to be lifted when the Council was satisfied with Iraq’s compliance with all demanded sanctions (Wallensteen & Staibano, 2004). These required or demanded sanctions were with regard to the possession of Weapons of Mass Destruction part of the Resolution 687 concerning cease-fire. Iraq however was permitted to import products geared towards humanitarian purposes whilst Kuwait was taken out from the restrictions. An exclusive element concerning monitoring along with verification were afterwards implemented namely Resolution  715 of 1991 and Resolution 1051 of 1996 in order to ensure complete execution of Resolution 687 provisions.  These resolutions enabled UNSCOM along with IAEA towards monitoring imports destined to Iraq searching for any equipment which would have impacts or related to creation of Weapons o Mass Destruction (UN, 2000).

The Security Council utilized the liberalism theoretical perspective to prevent Iraq from invading additional nations. Owing to this overview one can make a conclusion that the sanctions extended by the Security Council were greatly fair.  There were particularly fair towards the Security Council’s expectations with regard to what was to be attained. Still, the conflict with the reality on the ground made it necessary from time to time to persistently update and revise the instruments and the goals of the sanctions (UN, 2000). The Security Council’s efforts to inspections of imports and exports were implemented from a realism theoretical perspective. Despite the fact that the sanctions were placed for a lengthy period of time, the Security Council’s strategies seemed to have been partially executed to enable a lengthy term approach as indicated by the contributors within the 2004 Roundtable.  The Security Council learned crucial lessons concerning the effectiveness of sanctions set in Iraq through the numerous resolutions.  The United States along with the United Kingdom formed a significant component of assisting the Security Council towards adopting its resolutions (Cambridge, 2000). This was so after the two nations formed an exclusive maritime monitoring force which was involved in checking and monitoring Iraq’s imports also exports. The force was said to have checked over ten thousand shipments.

Operation Iraqi Freedom Critical outcomes

The March 2003 ‘Operation Iraq Freedom’ was aimed at stabilizing not only Afghanistan but also Southern and Central Asia, and the Middle East. This was achieved in many unforeseen along with unplanned ways that remain unsettled to date (Badie, 2010). Seldom have gaps much greater than the clarity amongst battlefield conquest and the improbability of its ultimate attainment. For Operation Enduring Freedom never was it intended or structured to be a humanitarian operation. Despite the fact that Taliban were eradicated to guarantee their punishment and also expediting intense large scale operation against the Al-Qaeda, the nation was left in an unstable state (Crawford, 2003). The actuality that the operation was not geared towards a humanitarian operation or for stabilization leaves no surprise that the operation left numerous stability and humanitarian deficiencies.  Thus in stability terms, irrespective of the regime transformation in Afghanistan, the nation is less stable currently as compared to periods prior to the operation. This is evidenced by the rise of banditry, warlords’ revival along with opium generation.   The effectual power of the Afghan government extends solely towards the north-east part of the nation. A majority of the militia along with party leaders who were accountable for chaos between 1992 and 1996 have regained authority positions. These among other problems persist in the amelioration of the humanitarian along and the stability issue in Afghanistan.

Further, the outcomes of the operation elevated conflict probabilities amongst countries adjacent to Afghanistan and who are competing to correct the fluid power equilibrium within the nation. As a matter of fact the major instability factor has been that the Al-Qaeda Taliban nexus was substituted by an additional prospectively more critical issue: regional inter-nation contention concerning the destiny of the unsettled and unstable Afghanistan.

The probable instability concerns the post-Taliban Afghanistan new strategic environment systematic features. Firstly, the current allocation of national along with provincial authority within the nation has extended little effort towards balancing interests and resources inside the country (Badie, 2010). This is a collateral effect extended by the by-products of the ‘Operation Iraq Freedom’. Thus the lengthy term regional and local players who were disfavored by the operation’s outcome may mobilize resources and attempt to force an adjustment. Secondly, the post-Taliban resource distribution amongst warlords and civilians favored the former, though no indigenous military authority has con\me even close to reliably control the nation (Crawford, 2003).

Lucidly, the war is not over: the features regarding post-Taliban Afghanistan indicate a significant probability for an imminent conflict, in addition to terrorism. The present rising of the Islamic States is a clear indication that the war is not over and the ‘Operation Iraq Freedom’ left more destabilization than there ever was. Perhaps two steps which could have mitigated the imminent conflict were: to start with, the pre-war-creation of a well-balanced and functioning administration of national unity. Secondly, the deployment of a huge peace-keepers contingent to support the government should have been extended. May be initially the best approach was to strengthen the 2001 the Bonn conference formed government and support it with a big number of peacekeepers. Since the peacekeepers deployed then were unable and ill-numbered to deal with the situation (Badie, 2010).   

War on Terror September 11

The World Trade Center toppling on September 11 amounted to one of the most horrifying incidents within the 21^st century, indicating the radicalization of the Islam extents. Immediately after the attacks the US sought to seek allies to create a counter attack towards Al-Qaeda locations within Afghanistan (Kellner, 2007). Following the attacks the American administration sought to utilize a realism theoretical approach to protect its people from future attacks: this was attained through the use of necessary force to protect its people. The war towards terrorism soon conquered the US government’s prioritized agenda and once the Taliban administration declined to turn over the most wanted terrorist Bin-Laden, the US began its attacks on the nation.  Since 9/11 the US realized the importance of the international community and started a diplomatic campaign aimed getting at foreign assistance towards fight against terrorism (Sanderson & Smith, 2006). The additional ideological influences theoretical perspective was evident through a vengeful Afghanistan mission to destroy and avenge American lives. The campaign was dominated by the message that terrorism is a global problem. It is clear that even the current government continues to seriously check the trends of terrorist activities through all means necessary.

Certainly, the 9/11 attacks transformed to a large extent America’s foreign policy aiming at a more realistic technique or approach. The president’s elite interest theoretical perspective was evident since his administration hid behind his failure to protect Americans by attacking Afghanistan. The US government realized that the war against terrorism cannot be a single nation’s duty and has continuously gathered support from other countries and allies (Sanderson & Smith, 2006). The fact that military operations require accessibility to another nation’s airspace has greatly transformed America’s foreign policy. To show how the US government was serious towards tackling terrorism through foreign policy it initiated negotiations with its rivals such as China and Russia. The Bush administration initial reaction was towards disrupting Al-Qaeda’s activities through air attacks but later he established more decisive and direct ground attacks. US’s endeavors were strongly supported by the UN Security Council along with NATO who regarded this is big step towards fighting global terrorism (Kellner, 2007).  As the US utilizes military operations as a last result the government realized that future terrorist threat could only be conquered through military engagement in Afghanistan.

The war against terrorism to the US which was aimed at protecting its people was sever such that the nation even threatens some nations who show unwillingness in combating local terrorists groups. The government realism approach led to the formation of a special branch of security to ensure security from external aggressors referring it to as the Homeland Security and also through establishing basis in Asian countries such as Syria (Sanderson & Smith, 2006).

Conclusion

The current conflict involves a splinter of Al-Qaeda called the ISIS. This group has similar sentiments with Saddam. It was weakened significantly by the Second Persian Gulf War. After the departure of the US troops in 2011, this group started strengthening. It has always harbored revenge sentiments with the US. The conflict is two-phased. First, the group wants to introduce a caliphate or an Islamic State. In this regard, the group’s conflict with Iraq could be intended for earning the group international attention and consequent membership. Second, the group wants to revenge against the US for having fought against it during US’s occupation of Iraq.

The best way to explain the conflict between the US and Iraq would be through realism theory. Realism helps the reader to view the conflict as primarily based on state reservation. The US has two prime interests. First, the country wants to maintain a good relationship with Iraq. This cannot be done if the ISIS gets into power. Second, the government feels obligated to protect those of its citizens who are working in Iraq. Again, this requires the removal of the ISIS which is the primary threat. On the other hand, the ISIS wants to get media attention, get a bigger following and funding. They also want to create a caliphate as they claim is their role.

References

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