Saddam’s War of Words

Description

From a Western viewpoint, the Persian Gulf War of 1990-1991 to a great extent satisfied the main President Bush’s goal: “In, out, do it, do it right, get gone. That is the message.” But in the Arab world, the causes and results of Saddam Hussein’s attack of Kuwait and his ensuing annihilation by a U.S.- drove alliance were never so obvious. The intense mix of Islam and Arab patriotism that Saddam produced to legitimize the ridiculous—his attack of a Muslim state—increased amazing help among the two Muslims and Arabs and kept on resounding in the Middle East long after the battling finished. For sure, as this investigation contends in passing, it turned into a huge strand in the tangled snare of philosophies and activities that prompted the assaults of 9/11.

This milestone book offers the first inside and out examination of how Saddam Hussein utilized Islam and Arab patriotism to authentic his attack of Kuwait according to individual Muslims and Arabs, while delegitimating the activities of the U.S.- drove alliance and its Arab individuals. Jerry M. Long tends to three principal issues: how broadly and in what explicit ways Iraq spoke to Islam during the Kuwait emergency; how elites, Islamists, and the slippery Arab “road,” both all through the alliance, reacted to that allure and why they reacted as they did; and the more drawn out term impacts that came about because of Saddam’s system.