Was the Iraqi Use of Military Force in the First Gulf War Justified?

Was the Iraqi use of legions military unit in The first of all disjunction War justified? In the overthrow of Cold War, a new problem for the international community emerged. In the summer 1990 Iraq launched an invasion of capital of capital of capital of Kuwait. Since the governance of the United Nations, the international law has contend a significant role in relations between states and the pick of the fittest has no longer been a legitimate reason for aggression. Hence, as Iraq has been a UN member a since 1945, its government must beat advocated its use of military force somehow. Thus ibn Talal ibn Talal ibn Talal ibn Talal Hussein Hussein took an advantage of ongoing disputes with his neighbour.The intend of this essay is to prove that the sparing frictions between Iraq and Kuwait could not gird service as a justification for the Iraqi invasion. Firstly, this paper will bear witness financial quarrels between the two countries. Secondly, a dispute over m unmatchab letary value of crude fossil oil will be discussed. Financial issues between Iraq and Kuwait ease up their roots in the Iraq-Iran contend. The eight years of fighting have caused sparing instability in Iraq. The topical anaesthetic government was suddenly forced to green goddess with destroyed infrastructure, depleted oil reserves, and mainly, with the third largest debt in the world that accounted for $80 one million million million (CIA, 2007).In short, local economy got in a dire spatial relation and in entrap to keep the country going, Iraqi leaders needed to obtain excess money as soon as possible. As a result, ibn Talal Hussein Hussein urged Kuwait to write off the whole Iraqi debt and in addition, provide Baghdad with another $10billion. As Kuwait belonged to Iraqs biggest creditors, the cadence of Iraqi debt was definitely not negligible. In fact, Iraq owed disjunction States approximately $40billion at the time (Freedman & Karsh, 1993).Hussein decided to advoca te his daring read by claiming that without Iran-Iraq struggle, disconnection States would have been forced to pay larger sums in order to nurture themselves from Iran and its Islamic revolution. Accordingly, in the Iraqi point of view, Baghdad deserved to be compensated for the war expenditures. Iraqi former hostile parson, Tariq Aziz, elaborated on this topic with pan-Arabic rhetoric. In his memorandum to the unfathomableary-General of the Arab League, Aziz argued that despite the division into states, solely Arabs lighten remained one country and what belonged to one, belonged to all.Therefore, according to Aziz, financial support provided to Iraq by Gulf States should not have been regarded as debt, but as aid (Salinger & Laurent, 1991). However, since the establishment of the United Nations, the principle of the pan-Arabism has not been legitimate. On the basis of Article 2, dissever 1 of the UN Charter, all states are sovereign. This means they have full strength ov er their own territory and cannot be forced into a purpose they do not want to make. It seems logical that no country would voluntarily forget a huge debt and render another $10 billion for no service in return.For this reason, Kuwait considered the Iraqi far compass demand as bullying (Mylroie, 1993 Salinger & Laurent, 1991 Bulloch & Morris, 1991). Moreover, there was possibility that if Kuwait had carry out the Iraqi request, more Iraqi demands for additional money would have followed (Mylroie, 1993 Karsh & Rautsi, 1991). Hence, Kuwaiti government refused to negotiate with Iraq for most of the time and ignored the Iraqi insistence. Nevertheless, when the bureau got more escalated, delegates of both(prenominal) parties finally met at a congress in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.Here, at last, Kuwait made a concession and offered ibn Talal Hussein Hussein and his cabinet a cancellation of Iraqi debt and a loan of $500million (Musallam, 1996). However, ibn Talal Hussein Hussein did not ac cept this offer and straight the next day, on August 1st 1990, sent Iraqi troops on the Kuwaiti border. According to Baran and Rubin (1993), Kuwaiti government perceived the meeting in Jeddah as a starting point for softwooding and perhaps even hike concessions. Iraq, on the other hand, came only to deliver an ultimatum. This essay will instanter examine this financial dispute between Iraq and Kuwait in call of international law.As the law stands, a war must be fought for a just cause. Among other things, it mainly means that a war should be waged only as a last resort, when all possible composed options have failed (OBrien, 1981). With application of this bump to the frictions discussed above, it is plausible to argue that Saddam Hussein and his government did not try to solve the dispute by all peaceful options. On the one hand, they were urging Kuwait to negotiate in the beginning. On the other, when Kuwait finally offered a concession, Iraqi government rebuffed it and imm ediately launched an invasion of Kuwait.Clearly, this time it was Husseins turn to make a concession to Kuwait. Even if afterwards the bi subsequentlyal negotiations would have failed, there would have been still other peaceful ways how to solve the problem, such as for example good offices, conciliation, arbitration or judicial settlement. Meanwhile, none of these were employed. From this, one can see that Iraq should not have advocated its invasion to Kuwait with an melody that Kuwait ignored all his financial needs. As the Iraqi demand was very daring, Hussein should have tried much more to bargain and make a compromise.The second pressing economic problem was the oil bell. Since Iraqi oil industry accounted for 95% of countrys foreign currency earnings (CIA, 2007), petroleum was very important for Saddam Hussein, specially in the post-war years. In order to raise extra revenues necessary for the reconstructive memory of the country, Iraqi government needed the oil price to f ire as much as possible. However, a constraint in the Iraqi send off became once again Kuwait. The Gulf State was producing more oil than governance of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) quotas allowed and this overproduction led to a slump of oil prices.Whereas in January 1990 a barrel of petroleum cost $20. 5, two months later it was only $18 (Freedman & Karsh, 1993). For this reason, Saddam Hussein was losing a prospect of prox revenues. Consequently, Iraq demanded Kuwait to reduce its quotas in exporting oil so that the prices could grow again. This request was completely ignored from the Kuwaiti side. In fact, instead of imperishable the oil limits to make more space for increased Iraqi production, Kuwait continued to far exceed them by $0. 6 million place a day (Salinger & Laurent, 1991).It was as if Kuwait kicked into the hornets nest. Iraqi foreign minister immediately declared that Kuwait was utterly and knowingly trying to make Baghdad to its knees (Salinger & L aurent, 1991, 37). On a meeting of Arab monarch in the boundary 1990, Saddam Hussein even escalated the situation further by aggressively stating that war doesnt mean just tanks, artillery of ships. It can condition subtler and more insidious forms, such as the overproduction of oil, economic reproach and pressure to enslave a nation (Salinger & Laurent, 1991 31).In this way, he directly incriminate Kuwaiti leaders of waging a war against Iraq. Even though Kuwait never publicly acknowledged being in an economic war with Husseins regime, from a leaked letter between a Kuwaiti statesman and the Kuwaiti king, it became clear that a part of the Iraqi accusations was justifiable. The letter showed that Kuwait was, indeed, purposely taking an advantage of the dire economic situation in Iraq in order to put pressure on Husseins regime (Salinger & Laurent, 1991). But still, it was OPECs rules and OPEC quotas that Kuwait did not draw together to.Therefore, it was OPECs business to dea l with the problem, not Husseins. A omit of consensus among OPEC members about how to deal with the overproduction led to lengthy negotiations and no visible result for a long time. At last, a few long time before the invasion at an OPEC meeting, Kuwait finally agreed to delay the quotas. Nonetheless, it did not change the Iraqs violent intention. This suggests that Hussein used his argumentation about the economic war only as a cloak for annexation of Kuwaiti territory.Furthermore, looking at these frictions around the oil price in terms of international law again, according to the Article 2, split up 3 of the UN Charter, all members must in their international relations desist from the threat or use of force. However, there is one exception to this rule and that is self-defence. Saddam Hussein was probably well aware of the right of self-defence. Therefore, he tried to make himself look unsettled and claimed that Kuwait was waging an economic war and that he was only prot ecting his country.Nevertheless, in the article 51 of UN Charter, it is distinctly stated that a UN member has a right to self-defence if an armed attacks occurs. Armed is a very important word in the discussed case, because Kuwait did not use army to intimidate Iraq and so Saddam Hussein could not justify his invasion in Kuwait with an argument of waging economic war as well. Based on the previous discussion, it can be concluded that Iraqi use of military force in The First Gulf War was not justified. In regard to the financial disputes and the issues of oil price, none of these can serve as an argument for invasion.In the first case, Saddam Hussein should have put in a more lawsuit to make a compromise with Kuwait. In the second one, OPEC had a responsibility to solve the problem, not the Iraqi government. Moreover, as the international law stands, both Iraqi arguments were not legitimate. In general, Saddam Hussein only substantiate Aristotles idea, according to which tyrants are trying to make themselves look insecure but this is only because they want to obtain what is justly not theirs. point of reference List Aristotle. (1995) Politics. 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