Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi leader led an invasion and occupation of Kuwait in 1990. Outraged by these actions, the Arab powers including Egypt and Saudi Arabia called on the USA and other western countries to intervene. The United Nations Security Council ordered Hussein not to proceed with the invasion but Hussein defied this order and refused to withdraw his troops from Kuwait. What followed was the Persian Gulf War led by a massive U.S. army known as Operation Desert Storm. The war went for 42 days of attacks from western nations allied to the United States. After this, President Bush called for a cease-fire on February 28, a time when most of the Iraqi forces occupying Kuwait had already surrendered and fled (Haywood, 2016) . While the Persian Gulf War was considered an unqualified success, which could not qualify for the international coalition, another conflict troubled the region leading into second gulf war also known as Iraqi War which started in 2003.
Just within two months, the U.S.-led coalition managed to topple the Taliban government in Afghanistan. However, this was not the end of the U.S. involvement in the affairs of the Middle East. After the end of the Gulf War, the United States vested more interest in the politics of the Middle East what was considered by many to be politics over oil interest. After the terrorist attacks of 2001, September, another war began in Iraq in 2003, after the spies and intelligence agencies asserted that Hussein had weapons of mass destruction (Haywood, 2016) . In what appeared to many as a controversial move by the U.S., they allowed Hussein to remain in power in Iraq conditioning him to submit the weapons of destruction to the searches. President Bush argued that the aim of the UN coalition was to remove Iraqi armies from Kuwait and that they did not have an interest of removing Saddam Hussein from power. In my view, this move by the coalition to leave Hussein in power made it difficult for the U.S. to defeat the subsequent revolt of Iraq.
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The insurgency was built on a deeply enrooted network which is not easy to defeat. Considering the fact that Iraqi and the Middle East Region are rich in oil and economically strong region, these networks and links secretly continue to develop across the region (History, 2017) . In my view, it is difficult to defeat the insurgency by the use of military means alone. The United States cannot win the insurgency by the pervasive society like that of Iraqi military because the U.S. has failed to answer some very fundamental questions about their invasion in Iraq. The U.S. has, for instance, failed to give a convincing reason why they invaded Afghanistan. Also, the U.S. does not seem to convince their citizens on what interest they sacrifice to invade Afghanistan. The citizens of the United States do not understand why they are sacrificing their resources and time in Afghanistan. The U.S. also failed to provide an elaborate plan on how they are planning to end the war (Haywood, 2016) . Clearly, the justifications and policies of the United States in Afghanistan is full of contradictions which are propagated by the U.S. Intelligence and spies’ agencies.
Apart from these conflicting policies, the presence of Al-Qaida in Pakistan and their connection with local radicals have made the war more complex and harder to fight. When the Al Qaeda went to Pakistan, they put in place strong networks with the local radicals making Pakistan to witness domestic terrorism which was not common in the past. The car bombing and suicide became the order of the day in Pakistan cities leaving tens of thousands of people including civilians, security personnel, and insurgents lose their lives.
References
Haywood (2016, October 26). Gulf War 1991 - BBC documentary. Retrieved from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYvRhSb9_nM&t=103s
History, (2017, September 15). What Happened in the Persian Gulf War? | History . Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xl_lctDXHuQ
