A Personal Perspective From 1990

Let me add a personal dimension to the dramatic story of Nawaf al-Sabah ’94 who was “front and center” during the Gulf War. As a U.S. diplomat posted in Riyadh during 1990, I was nowhere near the center but decidedly on the front. After the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait on Aug. 2, the U.S. embassy dispatched me to the town of Khafji on the Saudi border with Kuwait. My assignment was to assist those fleeing south over the border, including many members of the al-Sabah family. But my outpost came under threat, and I fell back to Riyadh, where I pursued two main questions with Kuwaitis: Did Iraqi occupiers plan to drive out all Kuwaitis, or rather seal the Saudi border? And did Saddam Hussein intend to roll down the Saudi coast and capture its oil fields?

A picture slowly emerged from encounters of Kuwaitis with Iraqi soldiers on these two points. The Iraqi policy was haphazard, punctuated by capricious decisions. There was no grand strategy but rather a tissue of inconsistent tactics. As the U.S.-led Desert Shield took effect, another question arose: Was an indigenous resistance movement forming in Kuwait against Iraqi occupation? Exiled Kuwaitis said indeed there was, yet it took another force to liberate Kuwait, Desert Storm. Its success allowed Kuwaitis “again to be able to chart their own destinies,” as President George H.W. Bush said in the presence of al-Sabah, who is now doing precisely that as CEO of the Kuwait Petroleum Corp.