Saddam Hussein and the Crisis in the Gulf

by Judith Miller, Laurie Mylroie

Examines the rise of Saddam Hussein, his reasons for invading Kuwait, and the threat he poses for the Middle East.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Middle East

268 pages, Paperback

First published October 13, 1990

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Reviews

[Dane Sherman · Rating 3 out of 5]

blah blah war blah blah bad saddam blah blah go usa — wish it more intensely scrutinized US narratives on the war —- blah blah nyt always nyting

[MasterMind · Rating 5 out of 5]

as a young generation who does not have full awareness about "What the Gulf crisis in the Middle East is?". This book is very detailed in describing the analysis before the Gulf War occurred. How saddam Hussein carried out his plans in a structured manner, and so did America and its allies led by George Bush.

[Joseph Stieb · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of the many books that came out during the Gulf crisis (this one is before Desert Storm even) to offer timely background on the crisis. I'd say this book is skillful with history and background but muddled in its criticism of US policy. Most of the book is background to the rise of the Baath Party and SH personally, the IR/IQ War, oil politics, the US relationship with IQ, and similar issues. They do a great job with this material, and I learned a fair amount of new information and anecdotes despite having treaded this ground pretty thoroughly of late.

However, their conclusion offers a borderline incoherent criticism of US policy. They start by calling for the US to wean itself from oil dependence, stating that the conflict in the Gulf wouldn't exist if the US didn't have this dependence. They don't offer any alternative, and they ignore the fact that the world economy runs on oil as well, making SH's bid to control almost half of the world's oil reserves They say that international law and order (sovereignty and HR issues) are not the reason the US is there, but then say that this was a key motivation for Bush only a few pages later. Lastly, they state that the US could have avoided the war with a clear statement of deterrence to IQ, but this was precluded by the engagement policy's attempt to push IQ toward moderation. They make the semi-fair point that when Bush administration officials said that IQ was going to invade KW no matter what the US did then that means the engagement policy rested on faulty premises. However, this is a bit of a hindsight bias. The Bush administration drew this lesson from the GW, but it clearly didn't know that SH couldn't be moderated at the time. The fairer critique is that they could have drawn clearer red lines for IQ and moved US policy to a tougher line in early 1990 when SH started to misbehave big time.

Scholars of IQ-US relations should probably read this book, particularly because Miller and Mylroie played such a big role in IQ history later on. Everyone else can pass.

[Tyler Holtry · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought that the topic that this author choose was very important to everybody on earth. Saddam was a communist dictator or Iraq. It talk about some of the stuff he did while he was in power before the gulf. this book explain why being a communist is a bad thing and why country are trying to get rid of the idea. saddam was a bad person who did ruthless thing to his own people and other thing to. he was a hard headed later he didn't take advice from anybody.

[Maureen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Scary book to read, scarier than a horror story because it was real. An evil man who bred evil sons and there's no question after reading this that they had to be stopped. And if the story doesnt convince you, the Amnesty Intl. reports in the back should.

[Brandon Jennings · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you don't know much about the history of Iraq or of Saddam Hussein and the difference between Arab Nationalists and Islamic Fundamentalists, this book has a lot of great info on those subjects. This is a solid overview of the ugliness that was going on in the region before Desert Storm.

[George · Rating 3 out of 5]

surprisingly good considering it was written in a hurry before the first gulf war ( when they thought knocking him out of Kuwait might actually be difficult)