The Gulf War,1990

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A shows the 'left hook', in which coalition armoured forces swept through the desert west of Kuwait into southern Iraq to cut off the Iraqi army. B shows the Iraqi retreat from Kuwait towards Basra, along the road that became known as the 'Highway of Death'.

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Source A opposes the US presence because it shows a huge American soldier sitting on the dome of a mosque, which suggests that US forces were showing contempt for Islam by being based in Saudi Arabia, the land of Mecca and Medina. His boots rest on barrels of 'Arab oil', suggesting that oil, not justice, was the real reason the Americans had come. The Gulf ruler kneeling to serve him coffee suggests that Arab rulers had become servants of the USA. Most pointedly, the soldier looks the other way while an Israeli tank rolls through a Palestinian village, accusing the USA of double standards: it acted against Iraq's occupation of Kuwait but not against Israel's occupation of Palestinian land. I know that King Fahd invited US forces into Saudi Arabia in August 1990 and that hundreds of thousands arrived. Saddam exploited Arab anger over Israel with his 'linkage' proposal, and in Jordan, where many people were Palestinians, there was strong sympathy for Iraq. King Hussein refused to join the coalition. The cartoon comes from a Jordanian newspaper, so it reflects this popular opposition.

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Source B is useful because it shows how Thatcher saw her own role. She describes urging Bush to stand firm when they met at Aspen on 2 August 1990, the day of the invasion, and later telling him that it was 'no time to go wobbly' when he decided to let an Iraqi tanker pass. This fits what I know: Thatcher was determined from the start, shaped by her experience of the Falklands War, and Britain quickly sent aircraft, warships and an armoured brigade to the Gulf. However, the provenance means it must be treated with care. These are her memoirs, written in 1993 after she had been forced out of office, so she had a strong motive to emphasise her influence and her decisiveness, and she was writing with hindsight. The source also shows that she accepted Bush's decision over the tanker, which suggests he was the one in charge.

Source C presents the opposite view, that the key decisions were Bush's. My knowledge supports this to a large extent. On 5 August Bush declared that the invasion 'will not stand'; he persuaded King Fahd to accept US troops and announced Operation Desert Shield on 8 August; he insisted on working through the UN, which Thatcher thought unnecessary; and the USA provided over half a million troops. However, C is also one-sided. It is based on unnamed White House officials, who wanted Bush to receive the credit, and an American journalist might naturally play down a British role.

Overall, the sources are most useful together, because each reflects the interests of its author and together they reveal the debate about who led the response. Source C is probably closer to the truth about who took the decisions, since the USA had the power and Bush made the key moves, but Source B shows that Thatcher encouraged firmness in the crucial early weeks. Neither source covers the war itself, as Thatcher resigned in November 1990 and John Major led Britain during Desert Storm.

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The UN campaign against Saddam Hussein was a success in achieving its main aim, the liberation of Kuwait, and it showed that the Security Council could work as its founders intended. However, it was a limited success: sanctions alone failed, the war was really fought by a US-led coalition, and Saddam was left in power, creating problems that lasted for over a decade.

The campaign's achievements were considerable. On the day of the invasion the Security Council passed Resolution 660 demanding Iraq's withdrawal, followed by sanctions (Resolution 661), the declaration that the annexation was void (662) and a naval blockade (665). On 29 November 1990, Resolution 678 authorised 'all necessary means' to free Kuwait if Iraq had not left by 15 January 1991. This unity was possible because the Cold War was ending: the Soviet Union voted with the USA, and China abstained rather than using its veto. UN authority gave the coalition of more than 30 countries, including Egypt, Syria and Saudi Arabia, a legitimacy that a purely American war would have lacked. By 28 February 1991 Kuwait had been liberated and its government restored, so aggression had been reversed.

The UN also tried to make the victory last. Resolution 687 in April 1991 required Iraq to destroy its chemical and biological weapons and long-range missiles under UN inspection, and in the following years UNSCOM inspectors destroyed large quantities of weapons. Resolution 688 condemned Saddam's repression of the Kurds.

However, the campaign had serious limitations. Sanctions, which were meant to force Iraq out peacefully, did not work, and in the end it took a war. The war was fought not by UN forces but by a coalition led and dominated by the USA, which provided over half a million troops, and critics saw the UN as a tool of American policy; Yemen lost US aid after voting against Resolution 678. Most importantly, Saddam remained in power. The Shia and Kurdish uprisings of March 1991 were crushed, more than a million Kurds fled, and the no-fly zones that followed were set up by the USA, Britain and France rather than by a specific UN resolution. Sanctions remained for years, causing great suffering for ordinary Iraqis, and by 1998 Iraq had forced the inspectors out and the Security Council was divided.

Overall, I largely agree with the statement. Judged by its stated aim, to reverse the invasion of Kuwait, the UN campaign was a clear success and a rare example of collective security working. But it solved the immediate crisis rather than the problem of Saddam Hussein, and the limitations of the post-war settlement meant that the Gulf remained unstable throughout the 1990s.