Conflict in the Gulf 1980–2011

Conflict in the Gulf 1980–2011 is one of six Peace and Conflict options in Section III: one 25-mark extended response (choose one of two alternatives), about 1,000 words. The syllabus key features are the origins of conflict in the Gulf, regional rivalries, the responses of Iraq and of the international coalitions, peacemaking and nation-building, the role of international involvement, and the influence of regionalism, sectarianism and tribalism.

• Survey: the Iran–Iraq War (1980–88); the nature of the Ba'athist regime under Saddam Hussein; Iraq's relations with its Arab neighbours; the invasion of Kuwait (1990) and the role of oil.
• Tension in the Gulf 1990–91: the roles of Iraq's neighbours, the superpowers, the UN and Australia; Operation Desert Shield; the liberation of Kuwait (Desert Storm).
• Consequences of Iraq's defeat: the 1991 uprisings; weapons inspections and sanctions; regional differences inside Iraq.
• The Iraq War (2003): its causes and George W. Bush's role; pre-emption; differences between the USA and European states; Australia's role; the military, civilian and cultural impact.
• Iraq in transition 2003–2011: occupation and nation-building; regionalism, sectarianism and tribalism; the US withdrawal (2011).

A note on language

Describe Iraq's communities precisely and neutrally: Shi'a Arabs (the majority, roughly 60%), Sunni Arabs, Kurds (mostly Sunni Muslims, in the north), and smaller groups such as Turkmen, Christians and Yazidis. Avoid treating any community as a single political bloc, and give casualty figures as estimates with their type of source.

• Saddam Hussein became President in July 1979. The Ba'ath Party's ideology was Arab nationalist and secular; power rested on the party, the security services, the army and networks of family and tribe from Tikrit. Opponents — communists, Shi'a Islamists, Kurdish nationalists — were repressed.
• Causes of the war: the Shatt al-Arab border dispute and the 1975 Algiers Agreement; fear that Iran's Islamic Revolution (1979) would inspire Iraq's Shi'a; Iran's weakened army; Saddam's ambition to lead the Arab world and the Gulf.
• Course: Iraq invaded on 22 September 1980; Iran drove Iraq back by 1982 and invaded Iraq; a long war of attrition followed, with trench warfare, human-wave attacks, missile attacks on cities and Iraq's use of chemical weapons, including at Halabja against Kurdish civilians (March 1988).
• International involvement: Gulf Arab states funded Iraq; the USSR and France supplied it; the USA tilted towards Iraq; the Iran–Contra affair revealed secret US arms sales to Iran. In the Tanker War the US Navy escorted shipping (1987–88).
• End: ceasefire under Resolution 598 (August 1988); no border change; hundreds of thousands dead on each side; Iraq deeply in debt.

• Iraq's motives: war debts (especially to Kuwait and Saudi Arabia); accusations of oil over-production and of drilling into the Rumaila field; a historical claim to Kuwait.
• Invasion: 2 August 1990; Kuwait annexed.
• Response: UN Resolutions 660 (condemnation), 661 (sanctions), 678 (‘all necessary means’ after 15 January 1991). Operation Desert Shield defended Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Syria joined a coalition of more than 30 countries. The USSR voted with the USA — a sign of the end of the Cold War; China voted for Resolutions 660 and 661 and abstained on 678. President George H. W. Bush spoke of a ‘new world order’.
• Australia: the Hawke government sent naval ships to enforce sanctions, and they served in the war, along with medical teams and other personnel.
• Desert Storm: air campaign from 17 January 1991; Iraqi Scud missiles fired at Israel and Saudi Arabia; ground war 24–28 February (about 100 hours); retreating Iraqi forces set Kuwait's oil wells on fire.
• The coalition did not march on Baghdad: its mandate was to liberate Kuwait; Arab partners opposed going further; fear of breaking up Iraq.

• 9/11 (2001) changed US thinking about risk. Bush's ‘axis of evil’ speech (January 2002); the National Security Strategy (September 2002) and the doctrine of pre-emption.
• WMD claims: the British dossier (September 2002); Resolution 1441 (November 2002); UNMOVIC inspections under Hans Blix; Colin Powell at the UN (February 2003). No second resolution was put to a vote.
• Divisions: France, Germany and Russia opposed war; mass protests worldwide on 15 February 2003. The ‘coalition of the willing’: the USA, Britain (Blair), Australia (Howard, about 2,000 personnel in the invasion), Poland.
• Invasion: began 20 March 2003; Baghdad fell on 9 April; Bush declared the end of major combat operations on 1 May.
• Afterwards: no stockpiles of WMD were found (the Iraq Survey Group, 2004). In Britain, the Chilcot Inquiry (2016) criticised how the case for war was made.
• Cultural impact: looting of the National Museum in Baghdad and the burning of the National Library (April 2003); damage to archaeological sites.

• Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA, L. Paul Bremer): Order 1 (de-Ba'athification) and Order 2 (dissolving the army), May 2003.
• Insurgency from mid-2003: former regime members, Sunni Arab nationalists, Islamists; al-Qaeda in Iraq (Abu Musab al-Zarqawi). The Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal (2004).
• Politics: sovereignty handed to an interim government (June 2004); elections (January and December 2005); constitution approved by referendum (October 2005), with federalism and the Kurdistan Regional Government; Prime Ministers al-Jaafari and Nouri al-Maliki (from 2006). Saddam was tried and executed (December 2006).
• Sectarian civil war: the bombing of the al-Askari shrine in Samarra (February 2006); Sunni insurgents and Shi'a militias (such as Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army); mass killings and displacement; Baghdad's neighbourhoods divided.
• Turning the tide: the Anbar Awakening of Sunni tribes (from 2006) and the Sons of Iraq; the US surge (2007, General Petraeus); the Mahdi Army ceasefire; violence fell sharply in 2007–08.
• Withdrawal: the Status of Forces Agreement (2008); US forces left the cities in 2009; the last US troops left in December 2011. Australian combat troops had left in 2008.
• Costs: about 4,500 US military deaths; estimates of Iraqi civilian deaths range from more than 100,000 documented deaths (Iraq Body Count) to much higher survey estimates; millions displaced.

Interpretations earn credit when they support your argument; you do not need to name historians to reach the top band.

Worked example (not a bank question). _‘Assess the role of the United Nations in the Gulf between 1980 and 2003.’_

1. Thesis: the UN was most effective when the great powers agreed (1990–91) and least effective when they were divided (the Iran–Iraq War, 2002–03).
2. 1980–88: slow responses; Resolution 598 only in 1987, accepted in 1988.
3. 1990–91: unity after the Cold War; Resolutions 660, 661 and 678.
4. 1991–2003: inspections, sanctions and Oil-for-Food — success in disarmament, humanitarian cost.
5. 2002–03: Resolution 1441 and the failure to agree on war.
6. Conclusion with a clear assessment.

• Mixing up the Gulf War of 1991 with the Iraq War of 2003.
• Saying the 1991 coalition aimed to overthrow Saddam.
• Accepting the WMD claims as fact, or saying Iraq was linked to 9/11.
• Treating Iraq's communities as fixed blocs with ‘ancient hatreds’.
• Forgetting Australia's role, which the syllabus names.
• Stopping in 2003: the option runs to the US withdrawal in 2011.

• Use precise terms: Ba'athism, sovereignty, collective security, sanctions, containment, pre-emption, regime change, insurgency, sectarianism, federalism, nation-building.
• Make the international dimension explicit: the UN, the USA, European divisions, Iraq's neighbours (Iran, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Turkey) and Australia.
• Keep dates straight: 22 September 1980; August 1988; 2 August 1990; 17 January and 24–28 February 1991; December 1998; 20 March 2003; February 2006; December 2011.

• Iran 1945–1989 covers the revolution and the Iran–Iraq War from Iran's side.
• The Changing World Order 1945–2011 covers US power after the Cold War, the ‘new world order’ and the UN.
• The Arab–Israeli Conflict 1948–1996: the Gulf War led to the Madrid Conference (1991).
• The Nuclear Age 1945–2011 covers proliferation and the debates over WMD.