Iraq expelled an American diplomat stationed in Baghdad on November 17, 1988 for having contacts with Iraq’s Kurdish minority. Haywood…
Igniting Iraq’s Invasion of Kuwait – Loans, Land, Oil and Access
Iraq invaded Kuwait on August 2, 1990 largely for economic reasons, but the contiguous Gulf countries had long-standing territorial conflicts…
The Extra Special Relationship: Thatcher, Reagan, and the 1980s
The “special relationship” between the United States and the United Kingdom has served to unite the two nations over the…
We Don’t Give a Dam — The Feud Over Financing the Aswan High Dam
Egypt’s agriculture has always depended on the water of the Nile; the river’s perennial floods, while critical in replenishing the…
Towering Infernos – The Kuwait Oil Fires
A 2010 Time Magazine article rated it as the third worst environmental catastrophe in history, right behind Chernobyl and Bhopal. As Operation…
A Bum Rap for April Glaspie — Saddam and the Start of the Iraq War
In the summer of 1990, concerns were growing that Saddam Hussein, who was massing troops near the border with Kuwait, was…
Iraqi Kurds, Operation Provide Comfort, and the Birth of Iraq’s Opposition
In the aftermath of Iraq’s crushing defeat during Operation Desert Storm in February 1991, protesters and rebels in the northern…
Iraq’s Rocky Road to Recovery Post-Saddam
In the wake of the U.S.-led Coalition Forces invasion of Iraq in March, 2003 and dissolution of the Ba’ath Party,…
De-Baathification and Dismantling the Iraqi Army
The 2003 American invasion of Iraq, which came not long after the invasion of Afghanistan, proved to be highly controversial,…
Strangers When We Met
Back to Diplomats and Diplomacy Strangers When We Met: A Century of American Community in Kuwait “We are now marking…