War in the Gulf, 1990

For much of the West the war against Iraq lingers in the memory as a vast morality play, a drama offering ready-made heroes and villains: a glowering dictator in military uniform, hapless Kuwaiti refugees with tales of persecution, plucky pilots with high-tech wizardry, and a defiant American president, ringing Churchillian as he drew a line in the sand. But this characterization of the war is greatly oversimplified, a one-dimensional portrait, lacking in context and nuance. In War in the Gulf, 1990-91, eminent scholars Majid Khadduri and Edmund Ghareeb paint a very different picture, one that brings historical depth to the portrait, and displays the actions of many of the participants in a new and revealing light. Correcting the Western views of most reporting, this book causes us to examine anew such questions as who was responsible for the conflict, and what might have happened if the United States had not intervened so rapidly.