The Gulf War as a fall out of the changing global balance

Abstract

Certainly, Iraq’s invasion and annexation of Kuwait in 1990 constituted a breach of international law. But the swiftness and might with which the US-led UN forces bombarded Iraq out of Kuwait in 1991 left much to be desired. This paper is of the position and tries to prove that the procedural prerequisites for such interventions, as contained in the UN Charter, were not adhered to. This could be traced to the over-bearing influence and interest of the West and especially the then US regime which acted without the hitherto encumbrances that marred UN intervention attempts during the Cold War era. Invariably, the hasty resort to war was a mere fall-out of the collapse of the Eastern bloc and the emergence of the US as a sole super power, and so points to the looming negative effects of a uni-polar global balance.

Key words: Gulf war, Global balance, Iraq, UN intervention