The Fall of Baghdad: That Was the Beginning

Two events tore the Arab nation apart and played the biggest role in the region’s backward slide into the state of Arab-on-Arab bloodshed reminiscent of the pre-Islamic era that we are now experiencing. The first event was the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in August 1990, while the second was the fall of Baghdad in 2003. Iraq’s invasion of its sister Kuwait shocked not just the Arabs, but the world as a whole. It was a trap that the United States let Saddam Hussein’s regime fall into. In the end, it led not only to the liberation of Kuwait, but to the fall of Baghdad nearly 13 years later.

Throughout those 13 years — from the beginning of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in August 1990 to the fall of Baghdad in March 2003 — the Iraqi state was being destroyed bit by bit. The repercussions of the invasion did not stop at the liberation of Kuwait; rather, they extended until the original objective, the fall of Iraq, was met.

Hence, by ultimately bringing about the overthrow of a principle power in the Arab region, the invasion of Kuwait was the true beginning of the genesis of the “new” or “greater” Middle East. It provided a justification for foreign intervention, and the United States went on to lead an international coalition, in which several Arab countries participated, to liberate Kuwait. Many consider the liberation of Kuwait to be the beginning of the end for the old Arab regional order and believe that it paved the way for a new one.

Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait lasted about seven months. The international coalition began its air operation in Iraq after the United Nations adopted Resolution 678, which permitted the use of force based on Chapter VII of the U.N. Charter. The war began on Jan. 17, 1991 and lasted 38 days, during which Iraq was dealt a blow that severely weakened it capabilities. A massive number of bombs and missiles, the combined weight of which reached 88,500 tons,* equal to 7.5 atom bombs of the kind that fell on Hiroshima at the end of World War II, were dropped on Iraqi territory. The number of sorties reached 108,000,* of which 80 percent were launched by America. American forces came to constitute 540,000 of the 630,000-strong coalition, in which 31 Arab and non-Arab countries participated.

Iraq suffered greatly after this war. It destroyed much of Iraq’s military power and, through the imposition of international sanctions like the “Oil For Food” program, weakened the country economically. This cleared the way for the United States to launch another war on Baghdad in March 2003, in a unilateral mission that the U.N. did not endorse. Several foreign countries, the most prominent being Britain, participated in the war under the pretext of destroying weapons of mass destruction in the country, but the real goal was to destroy Iraq’s military force, economy and population, to topple Saddam Hussein’s regime, to disband the Iraqi army, and to collapse the strong state standing at the Arab world’s eastern gate. That was the first brick in the foundation of the New Middle East that the United States and its allies were striving to establish.

When Iraq was toppled and occupied, and its army, the second strongest among the Arabs, dismantled, a plot to create a new Arab order had commenced. The evidence for this exists in the fact that when late Iraqi president Saddam Hussein agreed to withdraw all of his forces from Kuwaiti territory, America refused to allow it.

Today, more than 11 years have passed since America’s war on, and the occupation of, Iraq. How has the country turned out? Did the Iraqis get the freedoms that America promised them? Where is the democracy that the American army kept talking about and promising the Iraqi people as it advanced across Iraqi territory?

The first lesson about democracy that the Americans taught the Iraqi people was how to insult and humiliate a ruler. None of us can forget the spectacle of American soldiers removing the late Iraqi President Saddam Hussein from his underground hiding place, then trying him and symbolically executing him as Muslims began their Eid al-Adha sacrificial rituals. The video of his execution was spread around the Internet and via mobile phones so that most Arabs would see his end, a clear message from America to stir the Arab people up against their rulers.

By the time American forces withdrew from the country, it was certain that an Iraq like that of Saddam Hussein would never reappear. Iraq is now in a state of permanent internal bloodshed. Hence, America now has no reason to be apprehensive about it.

Thus, the Arabs lost the second largest principle force in the region and Iraq entered a period of sectarian and doctrinal conflicts. Fighting around the clock, armed militias, Takfiri groups, terrorist organizations — not a day passes in Iraq without bloodshed. Then, to complete the New Middle East plan, the Arab Spring uprisings began; all at once several Arab countries witnessed popular uprisings against their rulers. One president, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia, escaped on his plane, while another, Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, was sent to prison to be tried on the charge of killing protesters. A third Arab president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, was the subject of a failed assassination attempt.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad still resists, and Egypt successfully modified its trajectory after the January 30 Revolution. That has frustrated those driving the New Middle East plan; they know perfectly well that its success is contingent on the fall of Cairo and Damascus, which have not and will not happen.

*Translator’s note: Two obvious errors in the original text that rendered figures inaccurate by a factor of 1,000 have been corrected.