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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (40888)	8/30/2002 9:51:34 AM
From: carranza2	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Mq, I've got to disagree with your assessment that Saddam's invasion of Kuwait was provoked deliberately by a previously-instructed Ambassador who crossed her legs at him, winked, then whispered in his ear, "Take it all, big boy." No way, Mq. The risks were too high. Your theory presumes that the risk calculus pointed to near perfect certainty that the desired result would be achieved. I can't even begin to list the things that could have gone wrong and skewed the result. God doesn't play dice with the Universe. Geo. Bush didn't play dice with the Middle East, either.

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (40888)	8/30/2002 6:47:54 PM
From: Hawkmoon	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Some interesting links you should peruse before saying the US "conned" Saddam into invading Kuwait, and the diplomacy between James Baker and Tariq Azziz in the weeks before Desert Shield turned into Desert Storm: pbs.org ************** And this is pretty interesting reading as well: Is it true that the Saudis were very nervous about removing Saddam or allowing any of the opposition groups to take over?** No. No, that's not true, and quite the reverse is true. Quite the reverse is true. The Saudis wanted to go further? That's correct. Well, they and some of our other Arab allies were interested in seeing a much more aggressive posture on the part of the United States in terms of supporting Kurds in the north and the Shia in the south. That's all I'll say about that. Well, we've talked to the Kurds in the north and the Shia in the south. And they say yes, the Saudis wanted something to change. But what they didn't want was democracy on their border. They didn't want a parliamentary democracy in place. I don't think that's a fair characterization. I think they were a lot more fearful of a Saddam Hussein on their border than they would be of some democracy on their border. Frankly, since the end of the war, you've seen the beginnings of a spread of democratic tendencies in the region. You see it in Qatar. You see it in Bahrain. ... They're right there on the border of Saudi Arabia. ... pbs.org