In the middle of the Ukrainian crisis and all that’s happening in the world right now, I keep seeing a lot of parallels with what happened in August 1990. Back when Iraq invaded Kuwait under the leadership of Saddam Hussein.
A large country, economically exhausted, turning the eyes of the world towards it, by invading its much smaller neighbour country.
And although it was no surprise, it was a surprise.
What started as a power show-off turned into an invasion. An invasion like the invasions those same leaders were condemning days before.
To justify the occupation of Kuwait, a long list of reasons was presented: “Kuwait was originally part of Iraq”, “The people of Kuwait wanted to get back to the roots”, “The leaders of Kuwait threatened to ruin Iraq’s economy” and many more reasons.
I was raised in Baghdad since 1980, when I was 6 years old. I got the full Ba’ath education in school. I was a believer. I sang the national songs, I Saluted the flag every Thursday in school and I loved Baba Saddam. But on the 2nd of August 1990 everything changed. All that I believed in, in the provirus 10 years fall apart in few weeks.
After years of praising the Arabic dream of unity, brotherhood and the one united Arab nation from Morocco to Iraq, the Arab leaders started fighting on the media and uncovering all the hidden ugly sides of each other. Almost all were against Iraq, with some exceptions. Manly because of financial dependencies. Simulator to the political situation today. All against Russia except for some few real “good friends”.
Suddenly the leaders of the Arab countries were no longer respected brothers on the Iraqi news. President Hosni Mubarak was Hosni El-Khafif (meaning “loose Hosni”), the King of Saudi Arabia, the custodian of the two holy mosques, toured into the custodian of the Americans and the prince of Kuwait was the sick man who wanted to marry his daughter because he didn’t know her, having to many wives and children to recognise all of them.
One of the defining events, that made me abhor my country’s politics, was, when the teacher asked us to go to the school library, open all the books, deleted the words “county of Kuwait” and replace them by the words “the governorate of Kuwait”. My friend and I argued with the teacher, that we should not change history. The time the book was published it was a country. Even if it is now considered a governorate, it is not a reason to change the past and maybe soon it will be a country again? (We didn’t add: Since the whole world is preparing for the war, to free Kuwait). Our teacher just said: “Stop talking. These are orders from the ministry. Just do it!”. “And use pens. The change must be permanent!”, she added. Our hidden protest was that we used pencils and just crossed out the words with a light line.
For me, and maybe a lot of other Iraqis, the world before the invasion of Kuwait was a totally different one, than the world I woke up to, on that black August morning in 1990.
The latest events have brought back this bitter feeling of disappointment.
I see a lot of similarities but differences too. The similarities in escalating the conflict internationally instead of diplomatic de-escalation. The world starts arming like crazy. The news split the fighting parties into the good guys and the bad guys depending on the channel one is watching. The UN make sanctions that mostly cause the poor to become poorer and the megalomaniac to get crazier. While the US plays the role of the hero that will rescue the world, even though they have poured the most oil into the fire the first place.
The big difference now is the fact that this time the villain is the mighty leader of Russia and not the leader of Iraq. When Saddam threatened to destroy the world, the world knew exactly what he possessed and how efficient it was. An Austrian, working for a German company in Iraq once said: “We can sell to Iraq every weapon we want, as long as it is missing some bolts, if you know what I mean!”. While Putin’s threat, of making the world see what it had never seen before, is real. Especially if 30 countries led by the USA would try to free Ukraine with a military act.
To mention here is that, when the US invaded Iraq with false reasons and committed one war crime after the other, Bush jr. was not represented by the media as the bad guy. No sanctions were made on the US, no boarders or airspaces were closed, and the international criminal court will never charge him.
I had a relative who used to say: “same, same but different!”. Maybe this brings it to the point.
