Tumblr Icon RSS Icon  Gulf Stability and the New Iraq  By
Matthew Yglesias on January 15, 2009 at 2:12 pm  "Gulf Stability
and the New Iraq"   google plus icon   One way to think about
U.S. policy toward the Persian Gulf since the beginning of the
Iran-Iraq War is that we’ve been struggling to create a
situation in which Iraq is strong enough to avoid being
dominated by Iran while not being strong enough to dominate
Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Basically, right now there are four oil
rich countries all very close to each other and we want to make
sure that they remain four separate countries so that none of
them becomes too strong. The situation is one of enhanced
concern because not only are these countries oil rich, but they
share important cultural affinities that make successful
domination seem more plausible. So when we feared that Iran was
going to win the Iran-Iraq War, we backed Iraq. When Iraq
invaded Kuwait, we rushed to the defense of Saudi Arabia and
pushed Iraq out of Kuwait. We then shifted to a pol