ARCHIVED: Commentary No. 6: Historical and Cultural Dimensions to the Gulf Crisis of 1990

Commentary No. 6 has been archived.

Dr. W. Millward

November 1990
Unclassified

Editors Note: This issue of Commentary was written by Dr. W. Millward, the Strategic Analyst on the Middle East within the Analysis and Production Branch (RAP) of CSIS. The paper attempts to portray the historical and cultural parameters which condition Iraqi behaviour, and is intended to contribute to informed policy decisions.

Disclaimer: Publication of an article in the Commentary series does not imply CSIS authentication of the information nor CSIS endorsement of the author's views.

---

The Summer Cloud That Wouldn't Go Away

The tensions that gathered over Iraq-Kuwait relations from May to July had their origins in economic disagreements over oil production quotas and repayment of funds loaned to Iraq during its eight-year armed struggle with Iran. Border disputes and jurisdictional quarrels over access to shared oil fields were part of the simmering background to the gathering cloud cover. As late as 21 July the Kuwaiti deputy prime minister and foreign minister, Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Jabir, in responding to a question from the press, expressed the view that "what is between the brothers in Iraq and Kuwait is merely a summer cloud that will go away". Ten days later the could burst.

The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait on 2 August encountered minimal military opposition. Effective control of the emirate by Iraqi forces was accomplished in a matter of hours. By middle Eastern standards the move on Kuwait was a relatively bloodless operation. It went so smoothly that the announcement of the sheikhdom's annexation and incorporation as the southernmost province of Iraq followed in a matter of days.

As a military undertaking the Iraqi incursion into Kuwait was no contest. Apart from the gross mismatch of forces, after eight years of indecisive war with Iran which ended in stalemate two years ago, Iraqi commanders had acquired battle experience that made the move into Kuwait, in comparison, an easy stroll. By military measure, Kuwait was easy prey, a gazelle waiting to be devoured by the marauding Iraqi lion. As early as the third week following the takeover, Iraqi leaders were declaring publicly their view that Kuwait was history, and was now and forever an integral part of the Republic of Iraq.

The relative ease of the military move contrasted sharply with the massive reaction it generated in diplomatic quarters around the world. Opposition was immediate, comprehensive and unrelenting. The two sides of the old East-West ideological divide joined forces to lead the protest against Iraq's violation of diplomatic amour propre and regional security arrangements. Within 72 hours of the Iraqi move, U.S. President Bush, using his executive powers while the legislative branch was in recess, committed his government to defend Saudi Arabia and the other emirates of the gulf by dispatching ground troops, ships and aircraft in numbers sufficient to deter the Iraqi leader from further forward movement, assuming he harboured such intentions.

Many other non-aligned nations, including some Arab and Islamic, have lined up with the United States, the Soviet Union, and their allies, in a rare display of international consensus against Iraq. By the ninth week of the crises there had been no less than eight United Nations Security Council resolutions condemning Iraq and demanding its withdrawal from Kuwait and reversion to the status quo ante.

The last of these resolutions authorized a full air embargo to and from the country until Iraq complies. Two Arab League meetings in August joined the chorus of anti-Iraqi sentiment, and called for an Arab solution to the crises. Twelve weeks from the start of the crisis the American and international forces arrayed against Iraq in Saudi Arabia were formidable, but not sufficient to intimidate the Iraqi leadership and oblige them to withdraw.

Prospects for a settlement to this newest international crisis by the usual methods of avoidance, submission/deterrence, or compromise, would appear to be dim. That leaves the method of conquest, where one side overwhelms the other through the use of force. Both sides are still firmly locked in their first positions on the matter and show no sign of willingness to compromise in order to achieve a solution. The threat of armed conflict is real and imminent.

The fallout from Iraq's annexation of Kuwait has demonstrated graphically the wide gap that still exists between the values and perceptions of leaders and led in various parts of our global village. Some governing elites in the Middle East have elected to pursue domestic and foreign policies for which there is little or no popular support. When modernization forced development policies are pushed too far too fast, without adequate social acceptance, there can often be disastrous consequences, as the late Shah of Iran discovered too late.

Historical and cultural factors behind recent events in the gulf region will play an important role in the resolution of the crisis. As the site of one of mankind's oldest experiments in social and political organization, the unique historical legacy of Iraq has made it an unusually difficult land to govern. The attitudes, perceptions and values of the Iraqis and their Middle Eastern neighbours on questions of legitimacy and leadership, modernization and development, and international law are in a transitional phase of evolution and social construction. This can make dispute resolution based on strictly modern criteria difficult if not impossible.

In addition to a dispute about internationally acceptable behaviour among states, the crisis represents a conflict of cultural values and perceptions which will have to be accommodated in some fashion before it can be resolved successfully and its root causes remedied. Otherwise the principal performers in the current drama may be required to act out a replay of today's crisis in the near future with other players but with substantially the same script.

In few other parts of the world does the weight of history and accumulated experience exert such sway over modern developments. In an age when the old animosities and ideological combat of the Cold war can be vanquished, it is doubtless irritating that the problems and disputes of the Middle East apparently cannot be overcome as easily. The role of culture and tradition is an everyday reality in the region and cannot be dismissed by western observers as so much "polemical noise".

Historical Resume

The inhabitants of modern Mesopotamia-the land between two rivers-are prisoners of their own history today, like many other peoples in transitional developing societies. That history is a long and compelling story. It began in the proto-literate period some five millenniums ago, after the flood, when Mesopotamia became the centre for a series of ancient kingdoms, Sumerian, Old Babylonian, Assyrian, based on various competing principalities or city-states-Ur, Kish, Uruk; it progressed through a long period of alternating provincial status under various neighbouring imperial sovereignties-Achaemenian, Parthian, Sassanian, Byzantine; then it reverted to central status as the locus of the Abbasid and Buwayhid caliphates; it was devastated by the Mongols in medieval times and then incorporated again into a new empire-that of the Ottomans, until the end of the first world war, when it began its modern phase as a kingdom under British Mandate and changed its status in 1958 to an independent republic.

Kingship in ancient Mesopotamia, both before and after the deluge, was 'let down from Heaven.' The hero of legend and epic, Gilgamesh, is listed in the semi-historical 'Sumerian King-List' as the fifth ruler of the first post-diluvian dynasty of Uruk; he was also described as two parts god and one part man, brother and potential consort of other deities such as Enkidu and Ishtar. (N.K. Sandars, The Epic of Gilgamesh, Penguin Books, 1983). The medieval caliphs were frequently described as the 'shadow of god on earth', while the Ottoman governors ruled under similar deputed authority.

The immemorial enmities between the sedentarized clansmen and the mountain or desert tribes of adjacent territories have been traced by scholars to economic origins. The lands of southern Mesopotamia were of old fertile and productive when drained, but lacking in timber, minerals and other raw materials. To satisfy the settlers' need for these items, satisfactory trading relations had to be established, or when these failed, expeditions had to be sent to extract them. The beginning of a tradition of military conflict between the desert nomads and the sedentary agriculturists at the start of the third millennium has been traced to the breakdown of economic relations.

This tradition has survived into the modern era and has given the inhabitants of Iraq a native distrust of outsiders. It has also reinforced the perceived need for a single source of authority and decision-making in the military-political sphere in times of danger in order to promote security and survival. A similar tradition was firmly entrenched in neighbouring Iran. While many Iraqis will deplore the use of repressive force by their own rulers against themselves, they will rally by instinct in support of those same rulers when threatened by outside forces.

The civil government of Iraq was put in the hands of Britain at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, as a Class "A" mandate, according to Article 22 of the League of Nations Covenant. This arrangement was confirmed at the San Remo Conference of 1920, and Britain determined at the Cairo Conference of 1921 that Iraq should become a monarchy under Faisal, the son of Sharif Hussein of Mecca. Meanwhile in 1920 a rebellion (or The Great Iraqi Revolution) against British rule had taken place, a watershed event in the establishment of Iraqi national consciousness. It brought together in common cause for the first time, albeit temporarily, the conflicting elements in the social structure: the two religious groups of Sunni and Shi'i; the tribes and the riverine cities who had disputed of old control over the food producing flatlands of the Tigris-Euphrates valley. Forgoing a modern nation-state called Iraq has been primarily the task of persuading these elements of reconcile their competing interests.

Iraq became nominally an independent and sovereign state in 1932 and was admitted directly to the League of Nations. Its life as a monarchy was marked by a series of incessant political crises, including several military coups d'etat, and lasted until 1958, when a military uprising led by Abd al-Karim Qasim and Abd al-Salam Arif put an end to royal government and established a republic. Two more revolutions followed, one in 1963 and the other in 1968, in both of which the army played a dominant role and propelled Saddam Hussein to the summit of power in the republican regime.

International Incident or Intra-Arab Quarrel?

In the western world generally, Iraq's recent behaviour was perceived as a case of simple aggression by one nation-state against another in violation of existing international law, a structure of rules and regulations designed to govern conduct between all nations in the modern world. From a western perspective this body of law has been evolved and sanctioned by at least two centuries of painful European experience dating back to the Congress of Vienna and earlier. The outrage voiced by some leaders in the western world could be said to echo generally, if not exclusively, the sentiments of a majority of their populations. This was true even of states with no special dependency on Kuwaiti or Middle Eastern oil for energy supplies.

Protecting and preserving the sanctity of existing borders between nations are assumed to be in the common interest of all states in the current system of world order. A code of conduct regulating relations between nation-states requires the adherence of all participants to be effective. Violations of the rules, as with any other system of laws, requires condemnation and punishment. As the world of nation-states becomes more interdependent economically and technologically, the need to defend and enforce the rules increases proportionately if permanent conflict is to be avoided.

The Gulf crisis is perceived in some parts of the western world as a threat not only to prevailing standards in international law, but to the western way of life as well. According to this view, without ready access to oil supplies as a primary energy source, at predictable cost, that way of living would be endangered, at least until alternative energy sources could be brought on line.

The U.S. government, it is argued, is acting in the present crisis as the protector of access to those resources, presumably because Americans, and their western trading partners, "want to succeed, not just survive". Several domestic critics of American policy have emphasized the need for full public awareness of the "real reasons" why it may be necessary to use force in resolving the Persian Gulf crisis. The argument naturally neglects or downplays reference to a whole range of other factors in the equation, including concerns about a growing arsenal of weapons of mass destruction.

In the Arab world, on the other hand, and in many parts of the Islamic and Third worlds, the concept of the territorial state is still vaguely perceived and its value much less appreciated. For many Middle Easterners the idea of permanent borders fixed by cadastral or geophysical survey to keep the inhabitants of one territory distinct and separate from another is hardly imagined. Even today the boundaries between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia on the one hand, and the Sultanate of Oman, or the Republic of Yemen, on the other, are not fully and clearly defined. Most Third World disputes today, in Africa and Asia, are border disputes, and most of these borders were colonially drawn.

Historically the territories under dispute in the Gulf crisis were tribal lands and trading entrepots on the gulf waters controlled by the shifting balance of power exercised by the 'Utub, Al-Khalifa and Al-Sa'ud confederacies, and controlled albeit nominally, by the regional authority of the Ottoman imperial power through its garrison at Basra. Ahmad Abu Hakima has shown (History of Eastern Arabia, Beirut: Khayats 1965) that the Arab tribes of north-eastern Arabia were effectively independent of prolonged Ottoman domination from the rise of the Al-Sa'ud hegemony in the east-central region of the Arabian peninsula, the Najd, and the 'Utbi ascendancy further north, in the middle of the eighteenth century.

Until quite recently most of the leaders of the territories in contention in the gulf crisis have prided themselves on their bedouin heritage and tribal traditions. This is the social context par excellence where the custom of the 'razzia' ("raid for plunder") was originated and flourished. Among the bedouins of the Shara and northern Arabia, the ghazw was a raid, or an incursion, by a small expeditionary force with booty or plunder (ghanima), normally in the form of camels, as its object.

This practice was institutionalized of old among the camel-breeding tribes of North Arabia, was sanctioned by Islamic usage, and continued well into the modem period. Only since the emergence of a relatively strong central power in Arabia, forty to fifty years ago, has this practice been discouraged and largely discontinued. Far from being considered criminal behaviour, such raids were regarded as standard practice and an acceptable method of redistributing economic resources in an environment subject to climatic unpredictability and ecological uncertainty.

How far Saddam Hussein and his elite troops' pillage of Kuwait will be considered locally in the light of this tradition is difficult to determine, but it could affect claims for reparations following a resolution of the crisis.

Before the modern nation-state of Iraq existed, its southern territory was subject to on-going rivalry and intermittent dispute amongst several power centres; the indigenous Arab tribes, the Ottoman Turkish and Zand, Qajar or Pahlavi Iranian rulers, and the commercial interests of the European powers in the region. After the collapse of the Ottoman Empire following World War 1, British interests were dominant in Iraq, and the modern states of Iraq and Kuwait are still thought by many Arabs and inhabitants of the region to be by-products of decisions made by foreigners to suit their own interests.

Since 1920 the country's central problem has been diagnosed as the lack of a national consensus about what constitutes legitimate, central governing authority. For this reason some specialists have been inclined to the view that Iraq "is not even a real country". F.W. Axelgard has argued persuasively that Iraq's modern history has been marked by communal division and an inconclusive sense of national identity, as well as by relative regional and international isolation (A New Iraq? The Gulf War and Implications for U.S. Policy, Washington, D.C. 1988).

A measure of Saddam Hussein's success as leader of a traditionally fractured policy has been his ability to establish the Ba'ath party's ideology and apparatus as the main vehicle of government, eliminating or minimizing military intervention in politics. He has not succeeded, however, in eliminating the old economic, social and psychological cleavages between the rural tribal elements of north and south, and the urban dwellers. The war with Iran diminished their differences and these are once again minimized while Iraqis unite against external threats.

Despite the fact that many Arab leaders, especially Presidents Asad and Mubarak, have subscribed to the U.N. and Arab League condemnations of Iraq for its annexation of Kuwait, it has to be borne in mind that the views they support are those of an elite ruling class whose power is based chiefly on military coercion rather than the consent of the governed. The interests which dictate the views of the ruling elites of the region on the Gulf crisis are based ultimately on the criterion of system maintenance.

In the modern, post-colonial period, preserving the personal power of a traditional Middle Eastern ruler, or military autocrat, and the regimes they represent, has normally been contingent on one form or another of alliance with outside powers, eastern or western, on a changing basis according to alternating circumstances in world power alignments. The authority of Iraq's King Faisal and his successors was reinforced by his pro-British sympathies and those of his adviser, Nuri al-Sa'id. In 1972 former President Sadat of Egypt decided the time was ripe to shift his reliance on external military and diplomatic support from east to west. President Asad of Syria is a very recent "convert" to a pro-western orientation now that the former source of his military ordnance, the Soviet Union, has declined to continue the supply.

The views of the masses in the various Arab and Islamic states of the Middle East and elsewhere are difficult to determine with certainty, but indications are that they differ substantially from those of the leaders and ruling elites. This dichotomy never bothered western leaders of the colonial era and doesn't seem to matter much even today. The importance of clearly defined and demarcated borders between modern states is hardly a priority for populations who are still substantially socialized by and committed to traditional value systems, who see such concerns as a reflection of the priorities of former colonial masters, and who are still, in many cases, only 60 to 70 years from their traditional tribal past.

For many illiterate and uneducated Third World citizens, the concept of the territorial state is unimaginable, and even for many who have some education, still only dimly perceived. Where cultural systems and traditional values, and even modern educational standards, differ so widely, it is unrealistic to expect broad congruency between the views of ruling elites and their populations on the importance of the nation-state and the existing world order. The existing order, based primarily on the European nation experience, is opposed on principle by many Islamic organizations and Muslim leaders.

It may well be true, as Maurice Strong has claimed, that large numbers of people around the world have learned to enlarge the circles of their allegiance and their loyalty, as well as the institutions through which they are governed, from the family to the tribe to the village to the town to the city to the nation state. But this process has only just begun and is still ongoing in a country like Iraq. It is therefore clearly premature to suppose that we can call upon them to make "the last and final step, at least on this planet, to the global level" (State of the World - 1989, New York 1989, 20).

Where poverty and privation are present, and accompanied by varying degrees of repression from the ruling elite, whatever priority the leadership may assign to international questions will likely be viewed with indifference or hostility by the masses. Demonstrations recently in Egypt, Jordan and Syria suggest that many ordinary citizens in these countries do not share their leaders' views and are not willing to see Arab blood shed to protect values and interests that are sacrosanct to foreigners.

These demonstrators view the crisis as primarily an intra-Arab quarrel, a dispute between two regional interest groups, which should be settled by the parties concerned, and by other regional forces. Further interference by outside powers, and the imposition of external standards, with or without U.N. approval, would only be a reversion to the familiar policies of the colonial era. The one condition that tends to produce congruency between the views of publics in Middle Eastern states and those of their leaders is a shared perception of threat from an outside source.

Western Crisis Management - Sanctions or War?

As the crisis moved through its sixth week of positions of the two sides appeared inflexible. At the beginning of that week the Iraqi Foreign Minister, Tareq Aziz, met with the Secretary-General of the United Nations in Amman and no indication of change in his government's position was indicated. Solutions proposed by both interested and independent parties have failed to attract the attention of either side. If the Iraqi leader and his advisers could be said to have miscalculated the degree of opposition their initiative would arouse in international circles, there was no evidence they were willing to change course at that stage to accommodate it.

After earlier flirtations with the rhetoric of confrontation and talk of the need to attack Iraq and destroy its industrial and military power base, the current thrust of official and unofficial American commentary emphasizes the need to enlist more U.N. support and exhaust all diplomatic channels to resolve the dispute, white continuing the military build-up in Saudi Arabia. By the middle of January next year, when the maximization of military preparedness, and diplomatic pressure can be expected, the question then will be, what next? Who will blink first in the game of bluff?

Assuming that the pain of financial and economic sanctions, and the interdiction of trade, have not hurt Iraq sufficiently by then to make it change its mind, or its position, what actions will be likely to help move the situation from standoff? Assuming too that no accidental development precipitates a conflict that both sides say they want to avoid, where is the room to manoeuvre between two fundamentally opposed, and apparently mutually exclusive, positions?

As the crisis neared the end of its tenth week, the western allies returned to their firm demands for immediate Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait. On 14 October, the British foreign Secretary said in Cairo that the anti-Iraq alliance would not wait forever for Baghdad to withdraw from Kuwait. The unconditional nature of the terms being offered to Iraq and its leadership were emphasized by the comment that their only choice was whether to leave Kuwait of their own free will, or at the point of a gun. "If (Iraqi President) Saddam Hussein does not leave of his own free will, we shall have to push him out. There is no other possibility". American, British and Canadian leaders have taken turns in stressing this view to the Iraqis in order to convince them they are serious about the war option.

Outcome

The dilemma of the anti-Iraq alliance is that pushing Iraq out of Kuwait will not be that simple a task, and the costs could be enormous. Military action against Iraq will exacerbate existing Middle East tensions and animosities, and alienate the Iraqi public even further against westerners and outsiders generally.

In an early address on the crisis, President Bush said that the western alliance had no quarrel with the Iraqi people. It was their leaders and their policies that were the cause of concern. In keeping with the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of other states this remark was entirely appropriate and expected. But it is also true that in an important sense the quarrel is with the Iraqi people and their historical legacy, although it may be undiplomatic to say so. And yet, they can hardly be held solely responsible.

Dictatorships are not created in a vacuum. The expatriate Iraqi writer Samir al-Khalil, author of Republic and Fear: The Inside Story of Saddam's Iraq, believes that by and large the Iraqi people have been willing accomplices in the many horrors that have been their fate. In the circumstances of the current confrontation in the Gulf, it is difficult to think of blaming the Iraqi people for the depredations of their rulers. They have suffered as much as anyone at the hands of those rulers, and will bear the brunt of any anti-Iraq attack that may be launched. And yet they are victims of the vicissitudes of their own history and inherited traditions. It takes more than three or four generations to make a modern nation-state out of a traditionally fragmented society.

Commentators like Dr. Sulayman Hazin have reminded us that Iraq did not enjoy the advantage of ethnic cohesion, or relative religious uniformity, like Egypt or Iran, when obliged to confront the exigencies of the modern age. (al-Ahram al-Duwali, October 21, 1990, p. 7). Under the increasing pressures of development and change since 1920, Iraqis generally have responded favourably. But there is no magic formula, in the midst of dramatic social and psychological change, for the entrenchment of democratic standards and procedures. In the meantime uncertainty is easily exploited by ruthless centralizers like Saddam Hussein.

Therein lies the dilemma. How shall the Iraqi people succeed in escaping their past and choosing another path of political development without extensive outside tutelage, not to say interference? Exit Nuri al-Sa'id, enter Abd al-Karim Qasim, exit Saddam Hussein, enter some other Iraqi who will feel called to exercise political and administrative authority largely by the same standards. Without a whole new generation schooled and socialized by more modern, secular and democratic standards, the prospect of a less dangerous Iraq in the near future is dubious. Flattening the country by means of open warfare, as some have proposed, is hardly likely to alleviate the basic factors and conditions that have made Iraq an authoritarian state.

Iraq today, like many other Middle Eastern states, is caught in a transitional phase of development. Its political culture is still influenced by traditional standards, but is dominated by the requirements of a strong, unified nation-state; one man makes the important decisions, brokers power relationships; and brooks no opposition or disloyalty. Potential challengers are quickly identified and eliminated. Government procedures and structures associated with modernity-elections, parliament, cabinet responsibility-are devices used to reinforce and consolidate the power of the leader.

A military intervention to drive Iraq out of Kuwait will not help the Iraqi people to acquire the changed attitudes and values they will need to support a more modern and democratic system of government in the community of nation states. As decades of conflict between Israel and her Arab and Palestinian neighbours have shown, bombing is not a promising policy. It will have the effect of making the Iraqi masses more resentful and suspicious of foreigners, and encourage them to look inward for the means of self-assertion and survival. This will be exactly the opposite effect of what is needed to assist Iraq in its quest for political modernization. It will blunt for years to come the hope that Iraq can develop and prosper without threatening her neighbours. One cause for optimism may be the fact that the era of the nations-state system, while not passé, is giving way in part to a new age of economic and strategic interdependence among regional states.

Nevertheless, when all the problems and costs associated with the war option have been noted, we are still left with the uncomfortable reality that the raid on Kuwait was not a simple 'razzia' (ghaziya) in search of modern style booty, but far more in the genre of territorial conquest (fath; manakh), for which there is also ample precedent in Arab tradition. And the basic question of human relations; how do we deal with individuals or groups who use force to achieve their objectives? This has been answered traditionally the same way in the Arab east and the West. Until some other more effective method can be demonstrated, Saddam and his supporters will have to be told that the use of force invites counterforce.

One can still hope that the convincing threat of the use of counterforce against Iraqi troops in Kuwait, and military target in Iraq, will induce the Iraqi people to take matters in their own hands and deal with Saddam and his clique themselves. This course would be by far the best solution to the current impasse in the Gulf. But prescribing the means that others must employ is a gratuitous exercise.

---

Commentary is a regular publication of the Analysis and Production Branch of CSIS. Inquires regarding submissions may be made to the Chairman of the Editorial Board at the following address:

The views expressed herein are those of the author, who may be contacted by writing to:

CSIS
P.O.Box 9732
Postal Station T
Ottawa, Ontario K1G 4G4
Fax: 613-842-1312

ISSN 1192-277X
Catalogue JS73-1/6