w88 sports betting War laid hidden dangers for the chaos in the Middle East

Ding Long

(Source: "International Herald Herald", January 29, 2016)

This year marks the 25th anniversary of the outbreak of w88 sports betting War. Twenty-five years ago, the multinational forces led by the United States ended Iraq's occupation of Kuwait after 43 air strikes, dropping more bombs than all previous war air strikes in history, and forced Saddam's regime to sign an alliance. Since then, it has been subject to international sanctions for 13 years, until it was overthrown by another war launched by the United States in 2003.

The direct cause of w88 sports betting War was the invasion of Kuwait by Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq. In 1979, the Islamic Revolution broke out in Iran. With the support of the West and Gulf Arab countries, Iraq launched a war against Iran, hoping to defeat Iran in one fell swoop while the new Iranian regime was still unstable. However, Iran's rapid response and strategic will were beyond his expectation, and the two armies immediately fell into an eight-year tug of war. After the Iran-Iraq war, Iraq believed that it was at war with Iran on behalf of its Arab brothers. However, during the Iran-Iraq war, Kuwait "secretly exploited" oil from the Rumaila oil field shared by both parties and violated the production limit agreement, resulting in weak oil prices. On August 2, 1990, Iraq sent troops to invade Kuwait and entered the capital in just 6 hours.

w88 sports betting War occurred in an era of great changes in the world structure. At that time, the Berlin Wall had collapsed, Eastern European countries had undergone tremendous changes, and the Soviet-Eastern bloc fell apart. A few months after w88 sports betting War ended, the Soviet Union officially declared its disintegration, and the Cold War ended. w88 sports betting War marked the transformation of the world order. Unlike during the Cold War, from August 1990 to January 1991, the Security Council adopted 12 resolutions opposing Iraq's aggression. The U.S.-led military action was authorized by the Security Council, but the Soviet Union did not use its veto power. As a result, it received US$4 billion in economic aid from w88 sports betting countries. The post-Cold War world order of one superpower and multiple powers led by the United States had already begun to take shape when w88 sports betting War broke out.

More importantly, this war had epoch-making significance for the Middle East, and its profound impact on regional politics and security patterns continues to this day, 25 years later. Twelve years later, as a sequel to w88 sports betting War, the United States launched the Iraq War, overthrowing Saddam Hussein's regime, triggering another drastic change in the Middle East structure. The superimposed effects of the two wars broke out under the impact of the Arab upheaval, forming today's endless chaos in the Middle East.

The Middle East enters "American time"

For the Middle East, w88 sports betting War meant that the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union in the Middle East came to an end. After World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union competed for spheres of influence in the Middle East for a long time and cultivated agents. The United States united with monarchies such as Saudi Arabia to contend with secular nationalist regimes such as Egypt supported by the Soviet Union. The two sides are engaged in fierce competition in countries such as Yemen, and their strengths are generally evenly matched. After Sadat abandoned the Soviet Union and defected to the United States, the balance of power began to tilt toward the United States. w88 sports betting War marked the retreat of the Soviet Union and its successor Russia in the Middle East. Except for a few allies such as Syria, Russia's influence in the Middle East has gradually declined. The United States maintains a strong military power and a circle of allies in the Middle East to dominate the Middle East, and the Middle East has officially entered "American time." Since then, the shadow of the United States has always been behind every major and minor incident in the Middle East. Every change, big or small, in the Middle East is inseparable from the United States.

w88 sports betting War caused the Middle East countries to divide into two major camps: pro-American and anti-American. One side includes pro-American "moderates" such as Egypt and Gulf Arab countries, and the other side includes anti-American "resistance factions" such as Iran and Syria. The United States implements the policy of "containing Iran and Iraq in the east and promoting peace talks in the west" in the Middle East. On the one hand, it prevents the emergence of regional anti-American hegemons, and on the other hand, it seeks to resolve the Palestinian issue and stabilize the situation in the Middle East. However, neither goal has been achieved. Although the anti-American regimes in Iran and Iraq have been shackled, they are still struggling. The Middle East peace process is full of twists and turns, and it is far from certain. On the political front, the United States launched a small wave of democratization and required Arab countries, including its allies, to open up political participation. When the Algerian Islamist party was about to win the election, the Algerian military declared the election invalid. The United States acquiesced to the military's actions. The "Islamic hijacking of democracy" cooled the United States' enthusiasm for promoting democracy.

The September 11 incident prompted the United States to reconsider its Middle East policy. The United States believed that Arab authoritarianism, tyranny, and stagnant development were the root causes of terrorism. Therefore, it launched the "Greater Middle East Initiative" aimed at comprehensively democratizing the Arab world, and took the opportunity to launch the Iraq War to overthrow the Saddam regime.

However, a series of wrong policies by the United States such as de-Baathification in Iraq and the disbandment of the Iraqi army have laid the foundation for future political divisions and sectarian conflicts in this country. After Obama came to power, he tried to get rid of the negative asset of Iraq, determined to withdraw troops from Iraq and loosen control of the Middle East. This policy, together with the rising calls for democracy in the Arab world and the weakening of authoritarian regimes caused by the democratization of the Middle East, became the key factors that triggered the Arab upheaval. The hasty withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq led to intensified sectarian conflicts, and the Sunni rebellion eventually evolved into the rise of the "Islamic State" armed force. In recent years, the United States has wanted to "fade" the Middle East and reduce direct military intervention, so it has eased relations with its former mortal enemy Iran. The conclusion of the Iran nuclear agreement has intensified the security dilemma between Saudi Arabia and Iran. The decline in oil prices and the independence of American energy have made Saudi Arabia feel that its strategic value has declined and that it has been "abandoned" by the United States. It has begun to build its own team to confront Iran, which has led to the recent "break-off of diplomatic relations" storm.

It can be seen that since w88 sports betting War, the United States has always controlled the Middle East, turning its hands into clouds and rain. The loosening and tightening of its policies have led to violent shocks in the political and security landscape of the Middle East. In the future, although the United States will "fad out" from the Middle East, it will not withdraw from the Middle East. It will still maintain a strong military presence in w88 sports betting. It’s just that the United States’ method of controlling the Middle East has changed from direct military intervention to offshore balance, and the Middle East will still be on “American time.”

The power in the Middle East waxes and wanes

The direct consequence of w88 sports betting War was the decline in the strength and status of Iraq and even the entire Arab world. During Saddam's era, Iraq went to great lengths to build a military power with one million troops. w88 sports betting War completely shattered Saddam's dream of becoming a powerful country. Saudi Arabia paid for the huge military expenditures of w88 sports betting War and has not recovered for 10 years. Egypt has a lot of domestic problems, its people are poor and short of ambition, and it has given up its former geopolitical ambitions. Correspondingly, the strength and status of the three non-Arab countries in the region have increased relatively. The most prominent among them is Iran. w88 sports betting War severely weakened Saddam's regime, and the Iraq War even killed it. The pro-Iranian Shiites came to power in Iraq, and Iran was able to extend its tentacles to the Arab world, unite with the Assad regime in Syria and Hezbollah in Lebanon to form a "Shiite Crescent Zone" and obtain rich geopolitical assets. At the same time, Iran resisted international pressure and resolutely developed its nuclear program, which frightened w88 sports betting Arab countries.

The decline of Arab secular nationalist regimes has shifted the geopolitical center of gravity of the Arab world eastward to w88 sports betting region. Saudi Arabia's rising status in the Arab world has led to the prevalence of sectarianism. Arab countries have been forced to draw sectarian lines and choose sides. Many countries have been tied to the "chariot" of competition with Iran.

As far as Iraq itself is concerned, the establishment of the no-fly zone after w88 sports betting War led to the de facto division of Iraq. In particular, the northern Kurdish region gained a high degree of autonomy and became a "quasi-state." To this day, Iraq's geographical territory and political structure continue to be in the same state as after w88 sports betting War and are still undecided.

Generation of international jihadism

w88 sports betting War was a key event in the emergence of international jihadism. Whether the United States can fight w88 sports betting War is closely related to Saudi Arabia's attitude. After Iraq invaded Kuwait, Saudi Arabia fell into extreme panic. On the one hand, it hosts the Kuwaiti government-in-exile, and on the other hand, it is entangled in whether to invite the U.S. military to enter. Because Saudi Arabia is home to Mecca and Medina, the two holy sites of Islam, and the king respects him as the "servant of the two holy sites," inviting "infidel" troops to the holy sites is a highly controversial and risky matter in Wahhabi Saudi Arabia. To this end, the Saudi royal family held urgent consultations with religious scholars. In the end, the opposition to the garrison was suppressed, and the Saudi Grand Mufti (religious judge) declared that it was legal to invite foreign troops to garrison. In this way, three days later, Saudi state television broadcast the events in Kuwait. However, a considerable number of Wahhabi religious scholars and intellectuals strongly opposed this decision of the royal family. Bin Laden, who had just returned from the anti-Soviet battlefield in Afghanistan, united with some religious figures to write to the royal family many times, demanding that the US troops be driven away until their citizenship rights were revoked. As a result, a group of religious opponents called the "Awakening Movement" and anti-royal neo-Wahhabists emerged in Saudi Arabia. This group of people headed by bin Laden reunited with Islamic radicals from Egypt and other countries in Afghanistan. In 1998, the Egyptian Islamic Jihad merged with the al-Qaida led by bin Laden and announced the establishment of the "International Counter-Crusader Alliance" to target the United States, which has troops stationed in Islamic holy sites. At this point, international jihadism took shape and launched a series of terrorist attacks such as the 9/11 incident. Based on the jihadi ideology of Al Qaeda, Zarqawi and others took advantage of the chaos caused by the Iraq War to establish a branch of Al Qaeda in Iraq, which eventually developed into the "Islamic State" organization that is entrenched in Iraq and Syria today and extends its claws around the world. Therefore, both the Afghan Anti-Soviet War and w88 sports betting War were major events in the formation and development of international jihadism and terrorism. The latter, in particular, directly spawned anti-American and anti-Western radicalism and terrorism, posing a huge threat to Middle East security and international security.

Looking back at the war 25 years ago, w88 sports betting War saw the encounter between an ambitious regional hegemon and a global hegemon full of pride and desire to tame the world in w88 sports betting. The first large-scale regional war in the post-Cold War era broke out. It had a profound impact on the Middle East and is still fermenting to this day. It reflects the success and failure of great power politics, the waxing and waning of regional forces, and the gains and losses of strategic decision-making. It is still worth looking back and reflecting on, pursuing and questioning.

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