Who invaded Kuwait in the summer of 1990?

It’s the 28th anniversary of Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait which happened on August 2, 1990. It’s certainly a fresh wound in the Kuwaiti sentiment or rather in the Saudi or the people of the Gulf or the Arab sentiment.

What proves that this wound still suffers pain is the loud controversy caused by the comments of the Iraqi envoy in Kuwait when he called on the Kuwaiti government to adopt the term “the Saddam invasion,” in reference to Saddam Hussein, instead of the “Iraqi invasion” in the country’s educational curricula.

This suggestion aims to limit the incident – which is one of the events the times – of Kuwait’s invasion by the Iraqi army and that was led by Saddam Hussein to one person or perhaps to one family or tribe or even to the glorious Baathist Party of the solemn Saddam Hussein.

ALSO READ: ‘Resurrection’ of Safar al-Hawali

According to the Kuwaiti news agency (KUNA), the current Iraqi government spokesperson Saad al-Hadithi said within the context of a report that combines maintaining the memory and the desire to work with today’s Iraq: “The normal situation of the two countries is what was before 1990, i.e. before it was contaminated by the former regime’s invasion of Kuwait.”

However, modern history stipulates that the former regime, the buried regime, according to the principles of the current Iraqi media, which is the Saddam Hussein regime, is not the first to revive Iraq’s big dream of restoring the branch to the original, ever since the days of Ghazi of Iraq till the days of “comrade” Abd al-Karim Qasim.

The insistence of Kuwait and its people, and Saudi Arabia’s embracement, mainly, and the international shield protected Kuwait from these political whims and this should continue to be the case when these whims wake up again.

Intellectual shabbiness

Vigilance today must be double the vigilance before because the culture that governs “influential” parties, militias and parties in Iraq has enough intellectual shabbiness, political immaturity and Soleimani (in reference to Qassem Soleimani) ideological myths which are much more than Saddam Hussein’s myths and his lectures about Arabism.

The aim of keeping the memory alive is not to nurture grudges but to read what happened accurately and carefully because history, as we know, is a book that’s always open to more discoveries.

The aim of this analysis is to learn by example, as in the name of the book “Sermons and Learning by Example” by great Egyptian historian Al-Maqrizi who died in 1442.

ALSO READ: Iraq: Much more than anger over electricity shortages

Burying history means repeating mistakes and misleading subsequent generations from specifying people’s real interests at moments of destructive danger.

The Iraqi authorities’ invasion of Kuwait in 1990 is something which specifically Kuwait and Saudi Arabia must examine well and enrich themselves about, not to satisfy the heat of anger but to enrich the mind.

Wise remembrance turns the old wound into a live historical witness.

All what’s been written above is about Iraq’s rulers and not about its people.

This article is also available in Arabic.
______________________
Saudi journalist Mashari Althaydi presents Al Arabiya News Channel’s “views on the news” daily show “Maraya.” He has previously held the position of a managing senior editor for Saudi Arabia & Gulf region at pan-Arab newspaper Asharq al-Awsat. Althaydi has published several papers on political Islam and social history of Saudi Arabia. He appears as a guest on several radio and television programs to discuss the ideologies of extremist groups and terrorists. He tweets under @MAlthaydy.