For thousands of years, countries in the Middle East have been engaging in wars. These wars are sparked by things such as ethnicity, religion, ownership of land and even oil production. Over time, these wars have taken their tolls on the economies and political structures of the fighting countries, and an example of this is the country of Iraq.
Iraq, situated in Southwest Asia has always had an ambition of overtaking its Southern bordering neighbor Kuwait. This obsession has dealt Iraq many crushing blows over the span of the 19th century. In 1938, the Iraqi King Ghanzi used military power and mass amounts of propaganda to gain control of the people of Kuwait (Arab.net). This backfired on Iraq when King Ghanzi was killed in a car wreck, just days after Iraq troops had reached the border of Kuwait. Then again in 1961, Iraq plotted the annexation of Kuwait. Kuwait had just declared independence from Britain when the ruler of Iraq, Abdul-Karim Qassem declared sovereignty over Kuwait (Arab.net). This action prompted Britain to send military forces to deter Iraq from taking over Kuwait. During this conflict, many Iraqi soldiers died and in the end, Iraqi soldiers retreated home. In more recent years, Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein accused Kuwait in 1990, of "flooding the world oil market"(arab.net). After days of failed negotiations, Iraq invaded Kuwait on the 2nd of August 1990. Four days later, the US, and other member countries of UN executed "Operation Desert Shield", a plan which was suppose to remove all Iraqi forces from Kuwait. After this operation failed, "Operation Desert Storm", or the Gulf War ensued on January 17th, 1991. This war devastated the country of Iraq. Allied air raids destroyed roads, bridges, factories, and perhaps most importantly, oil industry facilities. After only being at war for a little more than a month, Iraqi casualties totaled more than 100,000 soldiers and nearly 20,000 civilians (arab.
