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

To: carranza2 who wrote (139412)	7/8/2004 3:36:13 PM
From: epicure	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

How could she? That's an easy one. Saddam took her statement that the US wasn't interested in border disputes as an OK, even though Glaspie would never have said that if she'd known the way Saddam would take it. Could Saddam know this 100% no. But he probably figured he wouldn't TELL her about the invasion, just in case the US wanted to do something up front. He probably figured after it was a done deal, we wouldn't care all that much, and took Glaspie's speech as evidence of that. Easy to put that construction on it. Could it have been otherwise? sure. I don't think we're talking about the same greenlight. I'm not saying Saddam thought we were saying "YEAH- go for it, invade Kuwait"- but what I think he heard, even if Glaspie didn't intend it was: "The US isn't all that interested in this area. Sure we'd like a peaceful settlement, but look, we're busy, don't bother us..." From what I've read about Saddam he could certainly have thought that once the deal was done the US wouldn't bother to wage a war over a fait accompli. So that's how I get over that hurdle- it's a low one. I don't think he THOUGHT he was bringing down the weight of the West on him, If you accept that he didn't know the West very well, you could see why he might have thought he wouldn't. Actually his interpretation of Glaspie goes hand in hand with why he wouldn't have thought the West would come down on him. The only other way to interpret the data is that he was insane- and I don't think that's the case, and other writers certainly don't think he was. Naive yes, but not insane.