25 Years after Kuwait's Invasion

I have never been able to understand what possibly was going on in the mind of someone such as Saddam Hussein who kept his country in war for almost 15 years. This apparently is not considering the years after he was captured, by the US troops, tried, charged and executed. If we consider the that time, I should say that the country have been involved with in a war for the past 27 years, maybe with a few months of break in between, if we look positively!

This criminal, Saddam, first invaded Iran in 1988, thought he would be able to capture the country in a short time. They were pushed back and then when both nations were ready to end the war, a few criminals who are not much better than Saddam and unlike him are still alive, who had found out that their survival deeply was dependent an continuance of the war, Hashemi Rafsanji for example, refused the ceasefire and the proposed plan of a few neutral countries after 2 years. That resulted in having the war for another 6 years, when finally in 1988 Iranian had to accept the UN 598 Resolution. 

Saddam took a break for about 2 years which in fact was a period of time that he was preparing his troops to invade Kuwait. That happened on the night of 02-Aug-1990. Kuwait in fact was one of many Arab countries who helped Iraq during the 8-year war with Iran. Kuwait poured millions of dollars in to Iraq, let Iraqi forces use there islands of them to lunch attacks against Iranians in Persian Gulf and was behind Iraq for any support they needed. After the war with Iran ended, Saddam decided to thank his Arab brothers and supporter by crossing to their border and capturing their oilfield! 

The US of course was aware of the attack. There's no doubt about that. The Kuwaiti royal family was notified of the invasion a few hours before it took place and they were airlifted outside the small country, to a safe place! Why? Because that gave Americans a reason to come to the region and kick Saddam's butt! They first introduced Desert Shield and then Desert Storm but stopped going to Baghdad to overthrow Saddam. Maybe Bush was too tired or too old for that. Or maybe he wanted to give his son George Bush the honer of capturing and liberating Iraq!  

After Kuwait liberation the US and its allies invaded Iraq again in 2003 and that has been the topic of conversation for years as why they did that. The US's reason was the weapon of mass destruction that they thought they would be a treat for the region and the world in general. Why this has never been justified, I, as someone who spent all those war years in the region and followed the news and event, believe that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. Some were used against Iranian troops and ethnic people of Iraq, to be more specific different chemical gases. Some were at the stages of development, for instance the cannons which Farzad Bazof, the Iranian-British journalist of Observer were investigating. Bazoft was hung in Iraq by the direct order of Saddam but the US and other Westerners never cared about Iranians or Kurds being killed by Saddam. The existence of real weapons of mass destruction were ignored for years.

The US troops pulling a MIG 25 out of sand! It was hidden by Iraqis to prevent their destruction during Operation Desert Storm. I wonder if that could be operational ever!

Anyways I remember the Aug. of 1990 clearly. I went to the newsstand every evening of those cold fall days of Tehran to get a copy of Kayhan which was a very popular daily newspaper on those days. As well I was following the news on TV. The news those days were mostly a direct translation from CNN but at times they had a reporter in the region including a time that they showed a border town of Iran which mistakenly and accidental was hit by Allies during the battles of Desert Storm. I was a university student on those years but was not paying much attention to my courses and exams! Perhaps that's why I'm in the shit-hole I am and have barely anyway to get myself out(!) but looking at the others who were much better students than me, I see that their situation is not much better! Anyways that's not the subject here. I remember that I was on a bus to Isfahan with e friend of mine and we were passing a small airport in Tehran-Qom Highway and we saw airplane that at the time we thought they had been flown from Iraq! It was funny and and almost unbelievable that a number of Iraqi jets flew to Iran to evade the US forces attacks and Iran let them in but they were not the ones, I don't believe, we saw in that little air strip in desert because they were civilian planes while the information I got from the web states that MIG and Sukhoi unless the one we saw were Ilyushin because they look civilian although they could be for strategic airlifting. 

The US troops finally left Iraq after Obama was elected president but the country is still in conflict. ISIS or Islamic States has control over parts of the northern Iraq while Iranians are closely watching them. Shia militia and Iraqi Army are defending the capital and other remaining cities and Kurds are as well involved. The continuance of the war is what major powers in the world want. That's how they sell their weapons in return for cheap oil! Iraq today is similar to Vietnam in 60's and 70's. The war seems never ending. The difference is Vietnam had China and Soviet Union to help him to get rid of  Americans. Would Iran play the same role for them to get rid of ISIS?!

(Photo, top: Destroyed Iraqi tanks and armored vehicles on Highway # 8 which connects southern Iraqi city of Basra to Kuwait City, during operation Desert Storm in 1990)