The 90's were a tumultuous time of foreign affairs for the United States. The beginning of the decade saw the end to one of the longest conflicts in U.S. History- The Cold War. As Soviet leader of Mikhail Gorbachev introduced more and more democratic ideals into the Soviet Union, 14 non-Russian republics declared independence from the USSR. After 74 years, the Soviet Union was no more. In February 1992, President George Bush of the US and President Boris Yeltsin signed a formal agreement ending the Cold War.
The video below of President Reagan telling Mr. Gorbachev to dear down the Berlin wall was extremely significant, leading to the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War.
The video below of President Reagan telling Mr. Gorbachev to dear down the Berlin wall was extremely significant, leading to the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War.
Also in the early 90's, trouble erupted with Iraq and its leader Saddam Hussein, after Hussein claimed the small oil-rich nation of Kuwait and invaded on August 2, 1990. After talks with the UN, President Bush launched Operation Desert Storm to free Kuwait from Iraqi occupation. Throughout January and February of 1991, the US launched a massive air strike on Iraq and a subsequent ground assault from Saudi Arabia. By February 28, the war was won, Operation Desert Storm had been a success.
Bellow is a great New York Times article explaining the origins of the Gulf War and how it influenced and affected future tensions in the Middle East.
Bellow is a great New York Times article explaining the origins of the Gulf War and how it influenced and affected future tensions in the Middle East.
1991: The War Before the War
The Persian Gulf war ended with an allied victory—and Saddam Hussein still in power
By Bernard Gwertzman
To understand why the U.S. decided to invade Iraq in 2003 to overthrow Saddam Hussein, it helps to go back 13 years, to the war that added "Operation Desert Storm" and "the mother of all battles" to the American vernacular.The Persian Gulf war seemed like a rout for the U.S. at the time, but it left Hussein still in power in Baghdad. The war had its origins in July 1990, when Hussein openly threatened to invade Kuwait if it did not change its policy of selling oil below market prices, which the Iraqi dictator claimed was costing Iraq revenue. Hussein also claimed that Kuwait, with its huge oil reserves, was actually part of Iraq.
'Don't Overreact.'
On the day he issued his threat, U.S. spy satellites began to detect the lead elements of Iraq's Republican Guard—some of the country's most elite troops—heading to the Kuwait border. Iraq was economically in very bad shape, having only recently ended a costly eight-year war with Iran, which Iraq had launched in the hope of seizing Iran's oil fields.
Hussein's statements and actions were not taken seriously by the administration of President George H.W. Bush, or by major Arab governments, such as Egypt's and Jordan's. They simply did not believe Iraq would invade another Arab state so soon after its war with Iran.
Richard Haass, who was then the Director for Middle Eastern Affairs on the National Security Council (and is now president of the Council on Foreign Relations), remembers Arab leaders saying: "Don't you Americans overreact. This is just Arab rhetoric. We will take care of it in our own Arab diplomatic way."
On July 25, Hussein summoned April Glaspie, the U.S. Ambassador to Baghdad, for a lengthy discussion, in which he implied that diplomacy could still head off an invasion. Her cable to Washington reporting on her meeting was titled, "Saddam's Message of Peace." She counseled the Bush administration to ease up on its rhetoric against Iraq.
Kuwait Attacked
Seven days later, on August 1, Iraq attacked Kuwait, and quickly occupied the country. The administration was caught flat-footed. Many key officials in the administration of the current President, George W. Bush, were also deeply involved in national security affairs in 1990. Dick Cheney, now Vice President, was then Defense Secretary. Paul D. Wolfowitz, who was Deputy Secretary of Defense until recently becoming head of the World Bank, was Undersecretary of Defense for Policy. And Colin Powell, who was Secretary of State in George W. Bush's first term, was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The U.S. had no treaty obligations to defend Kuwait. But it did have longstanding close ties with Saudi Arabia, which suddenly had Iraqi troops on its border. In the first hours after the invasion, President Bush said he had no plans to send troops to the region. But a few days later, he told reporters: "This will not stand, this aggression against Kuwait." Clearly, the U.S. calculation was that any threat to Saudi Arabia—and its vast oil reserves—was too dangerous to contemplate.
At first, the U.S. priority was to send enough troops and air power to Saudi Arabia to deter any further moves by Hussein, leaving undecided the issue of whether the U.S. should also seek to liberate Kuwait.
By October 31, the U.S. had enough forces in Saudi Arabia—about 250,000—to defend that country. At a White House meeting, the President was shown his options. Powell told the President that if the decision were made to liberate Kuwait, U.S. forces would need to be doubled.
UN Support
Bush decided to go to war in three months if sanctions did not work and the Iraqis were still in Kuwait.
Unlike the 2003 debate at the United Nations before the current Iraq war, when many of the world's major powers opposed the use of force, there was widespread support, even among Arab states, for forcing Iraq from Kuwait. Secretary of State James Baker had spent weeks making the case for war. On November 29, the Security Council voted 12-2 authorizing "all necessary means" to liberate Kuwait.
On Jan. 9, 1991, Iraq rejected an ultimatum from Bush to leave Kuwait. And on January 16, the U.S. launched the first round of air strikes on Iraqi targets and troop concentrations in Iraq and Kuwait. The Bush administration dubbed the war effort "Operation Desert Storm."
Live On CNN
On February 24, the ground invasion began. Hussein had promised "the mother of all battles," but by then Iraqi troops were dispirited by the bombing campaign. Instead of the bitter fighting predicted by General H. Norman Schwartzkopf, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, the war was essentially over in a few days. Kuwait was liberated. The White House called it "the 100-hour war"—all carried live by CNN, then a fledgling all-news channel. It was the first war with instantaneous coverage.
The UN mandate only called for the liberation of Kuwait, and there was no enthusiasm in the administration for pushing on to Baghdad, with the ensuing carnage sure to be shown in real time to viewers around the globe.
After the war—with Bush's encouragement that Iraqis "take matters into their own hands" and overthrow Hussein—Shiites in southern Iraq started an uprising. Hussein and his Sunni-led military responded with a vengeance on both the Shiites and the Kurds in the north. Thousands were murdered.
'Regime Change'
The slaughter in places like Basra, a Shiite stronghold, and in Kirkuk in the Kurdish north left many U.S. officials upset that Hussein's defeat had been limited to Kuwait. Bush and former National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft, in an article they wrote for Time in 1998, said: "While we hoped that [a] popular revolt or coup would topple Saddam, neither the U.S. nor the countries of the region wished to see the breakup of the Iraqi state."
The failure to eliminate Hussein in 1991 contributed to the current President Bush's decision, in the aftermath of 9/11, to go to war again against Iraq, this time with the goal of "regime change."
Other reasons were cited, such as the threat of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program, which later was found to be erroneous, and alleged ties to terrorism, but underlying it all was the feeling that the first war had left the job unfinished.
This article was found at http://teacher.scholastic.com/scholasticnews/indepth/upfront/features/index.asp?article=f112805_TP_Gulf_War
The picture below is of multiple aircraft that participated in the air assault of Iraq.
The Persian Gulf war ended with an allied victory—and Saddam Hussein still in power
By Bernard Gwertzman
To understand why the U.S. decided to invade Iraq in 2003 to overthrow Saddam Hussein, it helps to go back 13 years, to the war that added "Operation Desert Storm" and "the mother of all battles" to the American vernacular.The Persian Gulf war seemed like a rout for the U.S. at the time, but it left Hussein still in power in Baghdad. The war had its origins in July 1990, when Hussein openly threatened to invade Kuwait if it did not change its policy of selling oil below market prices, which the Iraqi dictator claimed was costing Iraq revenue. Hussein also claimed that Kuwait, with its huge oil reserves, was actually part of Iraq.
'Don't Overreact.'
On the day he issued his threat, U.S. spy satellites began to detect the lead elements of Iraq's Republican Guard—some of the country's most elite troops—heading to the Kuwait border. Iraq was economically in very bad shape, having only recently ended a costly eight-year war with Iran, which Iraq had launched in the hope of seizing Iran's oil fields.
Hussein's statements and actions were not taken seriously by the administration of President George H.W. Bush, or by major Arab governments, such as Egypt's and Jordan's. They simply did not believe Iraq would invade another Arab state so soon after its war with Iran.
Richard Haass, who was then the Director for Middle Eastern Affairs on the National Security Council (and is now president of the Council on Foreign Relations), remembers Arab leaders saying: "Don't you Americans overreact. This is just Arab rhetoric. We will take care of it in our own Arab diplomatic way."
On July 25, Hussein summoned April Glaspie, the U.S. Ambassador to Baghdad, for a lengthy discussion, in which he implied that diplomacy could still head off an invasion. Her cable to Washington reporting on her meeting was titled, "Saddam's Message of Peace." She counseled the Bush administration to ease up on its rhetoric against Iraq.
Kuwait Attacked
Seven days later, on August 1, Iraq attacked Kuwait, and quickly occupied the country. The administration was caught flat-footed. Many key officials in the administration of the current President, George W. Bush, were also deeply involved in national security affairs in 1990. Dick Cheney, now Vice President, was then Defense Secretary. Paul D. Wolfowitz, who was Deputy Secretary of Defense until recently becoming head of the World Bank, was Undersecretary of Defense for Policy. And Colin Powell, who was Secretary of State in George W. Bush's first term, was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The U.S. had no treaty obligations to defend Kuwait. But it did have longstanding close ties with Saudi Arabia, which suddenly had Iraqi troops on its border. In the first hours after the invasion, President Bush said he had no plans to send troops to the region. But a few days later, he told reporters: "This will not stand, this aggression against Kuwait." Clearly, the U.S. calculation was that any threat to Saudi Arabia—and its vast oil reserves—was too dangerous to contemplate.
At first, the U.S. priority was to send enough troops and air power to Saudi Arabia to deter any further moves by Hussein, leaving undecided the issue of whether the U.S. should also seek to liberate Kuwait.
By October 31, the U.S. had enough forces in Saudi Arabia—about 250,000—to defend that country. At a White House meeting, the President was shown his options. Powell told the President that if the decision were made to liberate Kuwait, U.S. forces would need to be doubled.
UN Support
Bush decided to go to war in three months if sanctions did not work and the Iraqis were still in Kuwait.
Unlike the 2003 debate at the United Nations before the current Iraq war, when many of the world's major powers opposed the use of force, there was widespread support, even among Arab states, for forcing Iraq from Kuwait. Secretary of State James Baker had spent weeks making the case for war. On November 29, the Security Council voted 12-2 authorizing "all necessary means" to liberate Kuwait.
On Jan. 9, 1991, Iraq rejected an ultimatum from Bush to leave Kuwait. And on January 16, the U.S. launched the first round of air strikes on Iraqi targets and troop concentrations in Iraq and Kuwait. The Bush administration dubbed the war effort "Operation Desert Storm."
Live On CNN
On February 24, the ground invasion began. Hussein had promised "the mother of all battles," but by then Iraqi troops were dispirited by the bombing campaign. Instead of the bitter fighting predicted by General H. Norman Schwartzkopf, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, the war was essentially over in a few days. Kuwait was liberated. The White House called it "the 100-hour war"—all carried live by CNN, then a fledgling all-news channel. It was the first war with instantaneous coverage.
The UN mandate only called for the liberation of Kuwait, and there was no enthusiasm in the administration for pushing on to Baghdad, with the ensuing carnage sure to be shown in real time to viewers around the globe.
After the war—with Bush's encouragement that Iraqis "take matters into their own hands" and overthrow Hussein—Shiites in southern Iraq started an uprising. Hussein and his Sunni-led military responded with a vengeance on both the Shiites and the Kurds in the north. Thousands were murdered.
'Regime Change'
The slaughter in places like Basra, a Shiite stronghold, and in Kirkuk in the Kurdish north left many U.S. officials upset that Hussein's defeat had been limited to Kuwait. Bush and former National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft, in an article they wrote for Time in 1998, said: "While we hoped that [a] popular revolt or coup would topple Saddam, neither the U.S. nor the countries of the region wished to see the breakup of the Iraqi state."
The failure to eliminate Hussein in 1991 contributed to the current President Bush's decision, in the aftermath of 9/11, to go to war again against Iraq, this time with the goal of "regime change."
Other reasons were cited, such as the threat of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program, which later was found to be erroneous, and alleged ties to terrorism, but underlying it all was the feeling that the first war had left the job unfinished.
This article was found at http://teacher.scholastic.com/scholasticnews/indepth/upfront/features/index.asp?article=f112805_TP_Gulf_War
The picture below is of multiple aircraft that participated in the air assault of Iraq.
In the mid-90's, one major goal of President Clinton's foreign policy was to maintain strong relations with Russia and China, two major Communist powers. While coordinating well economically and having successful arms-control agreements, both US and Russia had problems with each other. Russia chastised the US for military intervention in Yugoslavia, while America criticized Russian attacks on rebels in Chechnya. This led to strained relations. Things were no better with China. It was learned that Chinese spies had stolen US Defense plans, and Clinton pressured China to give more rights to its citizens. Despite this, Clinton pushed for more trade with China, and a bill passed granting China permanent trade rights.
As the Cold War was over, the US gave more attention to smaller conflicts. in 1994 troops were sent to Haiti, where there was a hostile military takeover that left the citizens in horrible conditions. The military leaders stepped down and democracy was restored to Haiti. In Bosnia, Serbs started killing or expelling certain minorities from Bosnia. The US joined with troops of NATO to ensure peace was enforced there. When Serbs resumed their racial cleansing, the US sent air strikes against Serbian targets in 1999. After the airstrikes, the US sent troops to keep the peace. The US was criticized for the extended duration their troops were stationed there.
As the Cold War was over, the US gave more attention to smaller conflicts. in 1994 troops were sent to Haiti, where there was a hostile military takeover that left the citizens in horrible conditions. The military leaders stepped down and democracy was restored to Haiti. In Bosnia, Serbs started killing or expelling certain minorities from Bosnia. The US joined with troops of NATO to ensure peace was enforced there. When Serbs resumed their racial cleansing, the US sent air strikes against Serbian targets in 1999. After the airstrikes, the US sent troops to keep the peace. The US was criticized for the extended duration their troops were stationed there.
The picture below is of President Clinton saluting soldiers stationed in B
In more peaceful foreign affairs, President Clinton helped create the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA. This act would bring the US, Canada, and Mexico into a free-trade zone, created to strengthen the economies of all three nations, as well as creating more jobs in America. There was some worry that NAFTA would send jobs to Mexico, where wages were cheaper and there were less environmental protection laws. However, when the treaty took full effect on January 1, 1994, trade with Mexico increased. The World Trade Organization voiced their protests to NAFTA in 1999. The protests were that there was little to no input from the people and that these agreements hurt poor nations, the environment, and American jobs.