Before he officially put on a napkin, picked up a knife and fork and began to carve up the giant cake of the Soviet Union, Qi Yiming still has one more thing to complete, which is related to China's competition for influence and presence with the United States in the Middle East, and to establish its own tactical influence and prestige within the world. This thing is the Gulf War!

During the Iran-Iraq war, Arab countries led by Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates provided $30 billion in loans and materials to Iraq to support the Arab brothers' resistance to Iran. However, after the end of the war, the Iraqi side wanted to repay its debts, "The Iran-Iraq war was a holy war it waged with Iran, it was to resist Iran's Islamic revolution export, it was to defend the Arab nation, and it shed blood and sacrificed for it." The loans owed by Iraq to Kuwait and other Gulf countries were credits that the Iraqis had bought with their blood, and Kuwait and other countries should write off these debts in the interest of Arab solidarity. ”

Naturally, this kind of jihad will not make Kuwait and other countries give up such a large-scale loan at once, and besides, Iraq is also an oil-producing country, so it is not difficult to save money. However, there is a second problem here: after the end of the Iran-Iraq war, international oil prices have undergone a new round of adjustments, falling from $20 to $14 per barrel. This has cost Iraq billions of dollars in lost revenue. Iraq believes that the drop in oil prices is a conspiracy by the Gulf countries and the United States, and that Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and other countries have not complied with the minimum recommended price of $18 put forward by OPEC and have exported oil on a large scale, hoping to strangle Iraq and destroy Iraq's economic foundation in this way.

Later, in an open letter to Arab League Secretary-General Al-Qalibi, Iraqi Foreign Minister Aziz criticized Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and other countries for exporting large amounts of oil in excess of their quotas, harming Iraq's economic interests, and even targeting its neighbor Kuwait.

The letter enumerates Kuwait's crimes, including the cross-border exploitation of the Rumaila oil field on the Iraq-Kuwait border, with oil stolen at $2.4 billion; In the first year of the Iran-Iraq war, Kuwait also repaired military installations on Iraqi territory, which it considered an act of military aggression against Iraq.

In his letter, Aziz stated: "We can only conclude from this that whoever blatantly believes in this policy, and who supports and encourages it, is part of the executor of the imperialist-Zionist anti-Iraqi and anti-Arab national plan, because the timing of the implementation of this policy coincides with the threat of Israel and the imperialists against the Arab world, especially Iraq." Iraq, like all Arab oil-exporting countries, has been affected by this collapse in oil prices. How can we deal with this serious threat? How do you keep the force balanced? Iraq had succeeded in establishing this balance of forces, but for that it had saved all the price it could during the war. In addition, this policy has seriously undermined the ability of these countries to solve life-and-death economic and social problems. ”

"What kind of future do the governments of Kuwait and the UAE intend to give to the Arab nation at the time of its dedication? What kind of policies are they working on and what goals are they working towards? In the open letter, Aziz said: "The Kuwaiti government has committed a double aggression against Iraq. First, it has seized part of Iraq's territory and oil fields and plundered its national wealth, an act that is hardly tantamount to military aggression; Secondly, it has deliberately suffocated Iraq's economy at a time when it has become the target of a vicious imperialist-Zionist threat, an encroachment as pernicious as military aggression. ”

Any discerning person can see that this is clearly a sin that is intended to be added to the danger. Iraq has picked on Kuwait's faults for all of them, and it must have ill intentions toward Kuwait. Sure enough, Iraq then massed up its army on the border with Kuwait and acted as if it would take military action at any moment.

Kuwait, of course, is not content to sit idly by, on the one hand, strongly refuting all Iraq's accusations and urgently briefing other Arab countries and the United Nations, while on the other hand, it is also ready to respond to possible conflicts.

The leaders of various countries have repeatedly communicated urgently in the hope of mediating the dispute, and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has also frequently shuttled between Iraq and Kuwait, hoping to resolve the dispute through his own mediation. Mubarak made four recommendations: First, stop attacking propaganda and threats of war. Secondly, to confine the issue to the Arab sphere and not to internationalize it in any form. Thirdly, a meeting between the two sides in Jeddah with the participation of Egypt and Saudi Arabia should be held. Fourth, in the process of resolving this dispute, the border issue is not discussed in order to make it easy to solve.

Even Saddam Hussein made a gesture and declared to the outside world that he would never use force to solve the problem, and the two sides negotiated in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. At the same time, the withdrawal of Iraqi troops from the border seemed to show signs of subsiding from the storm, which made people breathe a sigh of relief.

But no one expected that from July 31 to August 1, the meeting between the Iraqi Revolutionary Command Council and the member of the Iraqi Revolutionary Command Council, Iza ? Ibrahim and Kuwait's Crown Prince and Prime Minister Ade? Salim? Al-Sabah's negotiations in Jeddah are completely different from what people imagined. Originally, Kuwait was ready to make some concessions on economic issues in order to settle the dispute in exchange for peace, but at the meeting, Ibrahim not only demanded that Kuwait compensate for its economic losses, but also demanded that Kuwait's island of Bubiyan be leased for 99 years, and that the Kuwaiti leader go to Baghdad to plead guilty.

Naturally, Kuwait could not accede to such a demand, which bordered on provocation and insult, but the two sides nevertheless agreed that the next round of talks would be held in the capitals of the two countries.

In addition to Iraq's aggressiveness, in fact, the attitude of the United States has also greatly influenced Iraq's decision-making. Since the Islamic Revolution in Iran, relations between the United States and Iran have been strained, and the United States wants to foster a country in the Middle East that can help the United States contain Iran: Iraq.

Therefore, when Iraq began to do so many things off the line, the United States not only did not put pressure on Iraq from a neutral and impartial standpoint, but on the contrary, it did not make it clear and connived at Iraq, sending out a false signal that the United States would support Iraq, and it did so many times.

In January 1990, US President George W. Bush shelved a congressional resolution banning the Export-Import Bank from lending to Iraq on the grounds of "national interests." On February 12, U.S. Under Secretary of State for Middle and Near East Affairs John Brown? During Khali's official visit to Baghdad, he said in a conversation with Saddam: "You are a moderate force in the region, and the United States wants to develop relations with Iraq." He also said that the United States was not interested in the border conflict between Iraq and Kuwait. On February 15, in a ******** program, he called Iraq the head of the dictatorship and Saddam Hussein a well-known tyrant, and called on the American public to oppose him, saying that this is also the view of the US government. Saddam Hussein was furious. U.S. Secretary of State James? Baker then instructed the U.S. ambassador to Baghdad, April Brown. Graspe apologized to Saddam.

On 21 February, the Bush administration once again opposed a congressional resolution that criticized Iraq's human rights situation and was unfavorable to Iraq. On March 15, Iraq executed Fazad, a special correspondent for the British newspaper The Observer, on charges of espionage, despite the pleas of Britain and its allies. Bazoft. On 28 March, British customs officers, in cooperation with the United States police, seized a shipment of electronic devices destined for Iraq at the London airport. British police claimed that the devices were detonators of nuclear weapons, and arrested five suspects, including two Iraqis, as a result. They are accused of attempting to illegally ship nuclear detonating devices to Iraq that Britain has restricted exports, and in response to Western propaganda reports such as the United States and the United Kingdom, which have attacked Iraq in an attempt to acquire advanced technology to produce atomic bombs.

On 2 April, Saddam Hussein made a televised speech stressing that Iraq would not accept any external pressure or intimidation in order to defend its national sovereignty. Saddam Hussein also unexpectedly announced that although Iraq does not possess nuclear weapons, it already possesses advanced dualistic chemical weapons, and in this way issued a warning to Israel: "I swear to Allah that if Israel attacks Iraq by any means, we will consume half of its country...... We will exterminate those who threaten us with atomic bombs. ”

Bush Sr. responded: "I think these speeches are terrible. I have not hesitated to insist that Iraq abandon its intention to use chemical weapons. I think this will not help the interests of the Middle East or Iraq in terms of security; I would even go so far as to say that this would be counterproductive, and I would suggest that people forget about the use of chemical and biological weapons. However, this ambiguous and deterrent rhetoric not only did not deter Iraq, but instead regarded it as connivance with the United States, and Iraq's ambitions and audacity developed in an even more incorrigible direction.

In July, U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Graspie and Assistant Secretary of State John A. Kelly and others have expressed on different occasions the idea that the United States has no intention of getting involved in the conflict in the Gulf states. This series of wrong signals made Saddam finally show his butcher's knife and prepare to take action against Kuwait.

Some people also believe that the reason why the United States has released a series of wrong signals to boost Saddam's arrogance is that it deliberately set a trap for him to make Saddam Hussein make crazy moves, and then the United States will appear as a savior.

However, at 2 a.m. Baghdad time on 2 August, the Iraqi army mobilized 14 divisions with a total strength of more than 100,000 troops, and with the support of the air force and the cooperation of the navy, invaded Kuwait on a large scale.