ABSTRACT
This chapter examines and compares strikingly similar narratives employed strategically by United States foreign policymakers and diplomats in the international negotiations building up to the 1991 Persian Gulf War and 2003 Iraq War. It begins with a brief discussion of the key politico-military background details justifying the US attempts to attract coalition partners in these anti-Iraq endeavors. The chapter evaluates the effectiveness of the coalition-building efforts and discusses how the suitability of the narratives factored into the outcomes. It offers some brief conclusions about the narrative employed in these cases. On August 2, 1990, Iraq attacked neighboring Kuwait. Iraqi forces quickly occupied the country and briefly set up a puppet government before simply annexing Kuwait. The Bush administration’s primary original goals for the Iraq War could not be met because US weapons inspectors quickly concluded that Iraq did not have WMD after all.
