ABSTRACT
The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait began in the early hours of 2 August 1990 and ended after a few hours of sporadic fighting with the occupation of the entire emirate by 100,000 troops. This was the start of a crisis that was to lead to conflict and the comprehensive rout of the Iraqi occupying forces six months later – but only after the assembly of a massive military coalition, over 700,000 strong, under US leadership and with contributions from over thirty countries, ten of them Arab. Never before in the history of the region had so many Arab countries gone into battle against an Arab brother, one who not much more than a year previously had enjoyed widespread fraternal support against the Iranian (Persian) enemy. Never before had the United Nations authorized the use of force against a member state with the consenting votes of both superpowers. A decade later, divisions in the Arab world opened or exacerbated by this conflict remained largely intact. By then, the United States had no serious international challenger within the region. And Iraq, still under Saddam Hussein, remained a pariah state, subject since 1990 to the most draconian sanctions regime implemented in the history of the United Nations.
