Pilots claimed that in the Western Desert of Iraq they had hit 90 Scud launchers that were firing at Israel
Pilots claimed that in the Western Desert of Iraq they had hit 90 Scud launchers that were firing at Israel. In the first hours of the allied air attack, missiles and smart bombs were shown smashing into telecommunications towers in Baghdad. Video film was taken by attacking aircraft showing bridges over the Tigris and Euphrates erupting as they were hit. The image of the war presented by the allied military was of clinical efficiency.
Once the war was under way, the flight of the Kurds through their snow-covered mountains in the wake of their failed rebellion was flashed onto television screens across the world. Not surprisingly, viewers got the impression that the war was being fought, at least in part, for the sake of Iraqi self-determination. It will be difficult for Washington to stand to one side while Iraqi Kurdistan once again falls under the sway of Baghdad.A further problem for the Gulf war allies is that their original military victory was oversold. This brutality had not prevented the US, Britain and most West European countries from cultivating Iraq during the eight-year Iran-Iraq war. But in the lead-up to the Gulf conflict allied propaganda focused on the undoubted savagery of Iraqi torturers in Kuwait. Their reasoning was that if they occupied Baghdad they would be forced to call elections within six months.
These, in turn, would be likely to produce a democratic government dominated by the Shia and possibly sympathetic to Iran. Nothing could be more destabilising to the Sunni Muslim rulers of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Bahrain.President Clinton's difficulty is that the Gulf war was sold as a democratic venture. A regime that flaunts its brutality as much as possible, like that of Saddam Hussein, is not difficult to demonise. It was fought to return the Middle East to the status quo ante before Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait.