As many observers have noted, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine parallels Iraq’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait. So does the international response. Both then and now, a significant international coalition has united to impose punishing sanctions, accusing the invading country of flagrant violations of international law and basic human rights.
So far, the U.S.-led response seems to be bringing together allies and hitting Russia hard. Sanctions have crippled the Russian economy. Similarly, three decades ago during the Gulf crisis, President George H.W. Bush received high marks for bringing the world together to impose unprecedented sanctions on Iraq. The robust international response ignited hopes for what Bush called a “new world order,” much as today’s headlines suggest a newly reunited West.
My research on Iraq under sanctions suggests that building the coalition and imposing sanctions will be the easy part. Bush ended the first Gulf War by uniting a military coalition that expelled Saddam Hussein’s forces from Kuwait — but that didn’t end the conflict with Iraq. Russia’s nuclear weapons make NATO involvement in the conflict unlikely — and the rhetoric and sanctions will make ending the conflict with Russia quite difficult.
Sanctions tend to take on a life of their own, causing intense suffering among the general population without significantly harming the ruling elite. Indeed, sanctions can strengthen the leader’s hold on power. International unity forged during crisis can be difficult to sustain over time as national interests diverge. And once the invading leader has been demonized to arouse support for sanctions, it becomes difficult to lift the sanctions or accept a political compromise.
How do you negotiate after you’ve said, as President Biden recently said about Russian President Vladimir Putin, that someone “cannot remain in power”?
Biden called Putin a ‘war criminal.’ That’s risky.
The political expediency of harsh rhetoric
Biden recently called Putin a “war criminal.” The International Court of Justice has ordered Russia to leave Ukraine, and the International Criminal Court is investigating possible Russian war crimes, for which Putin could be held accountable.
Given the bombing of hospitals, “war criminal” may be accurate. Such a term is certainly politically useful in building support for policies that raise fuel prices and may escalate the war.
Bush used similar rhetoric. He argued, “We’re dealing with Hitler revisited, a totalitarianism and a brutality that is naked and unprecedented in modern times, and that must not stand!” After the Gulf War, Bush’s secretary of state, James Baker, told his European counterparts that Hussein was “a murderer, and a thug, and a criminal. No one — I repeat no one — should conduct any normal business with an Iraqi government headed by Saddam.”
The Clinton administration continued this approach. When asked if he would moderate U.S. policy on Iraq in 1994, President Bill Clinton responded that Hussein was guilty of “crimes against humanity, including genocide,” and that Clinton would “see that Saddam Hussein and his regime are held fully responsible for the bloodshed in Kuwait and Iraq.” But until President George W. Bush’s administration, the United States lacked the means or the will to hold Hussein accountable or remove him from power.
George H.W. Bush’s descriptions of Hussein’s “brutality against innocent citizens” were often accurate. However, they made ending the conflict politically untenable.
Russia’s been hit by a financial Cold War
Perpetual sanctions, no regime change
Sanctions have a poor track record for inducing regime change. Crippling sanctions in Iraq increased food prices by 4,000 percent between 1990 and 1995. News media reported that ordinary Iraqis were selling their gold and furniture and that poor families were forced to send their children to orphanages. But Saddam continued to build palaces; people close to the regime emerged as a newly wealthy class. In 1996, an oil-for-food scheme further enriched regime officials while doing little for ordinary Iraqis.
The sanctions on Iraq, designed to undermine Hussein’s support, made Iraqis more dependent on his regime. As the Iraqi economy collapsed, the government rationed food, which in practice meant that the regime decided who ate and how much. After a decade of sanctions the regime still had a strong grip on power.
Hussein eventually realized that the United States was unwilling to lift sanctions and ceased cooperating with the United Nations, suspending weapons inspections in Iraq. If Putin comes to a similar conclusion, he may be less likely to leave Ukraine. That would increase the likelihood of a bloody stalemate.
Diplomatic costs of a stalemate
In the 1990s, Bush’s coalition was torn apart by the desire for Iraqi oil, the aversion to Iraqi suffering and the United States’ refusal to compromise.
Moscow had supported Washington in the Gulf crisis, and U.S. leaders hoped it would be a pillar of the new post-Cold War order. But in 1994, Russian Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev argued that if Iraq began to cooperate, the United States and the U.N. Security Council “must be ready to take ‘Yes’ for an answer.” France and then most of Western Europe soon joined Moscow in criticizing U.S. inflexibility. France stopped helping to enforce no-fly zones over Iraq. The humanitarian crisis eroded support for a strategy of containment. In 1998, these disagreements led Russia to recall its ambassador to Washington for the first time since World War II.
But even if the Clinton administration had wanted to change course, anti-Hussein rhetoric in the U.S. had created domestic constraints that were hard to overcome. In 1998, the Senate passed the Iraq Liberation Act by unanimous consent, codifying an uncompromising policy of regime change in Baghdad. That position increasingly isolated the United States from its allies, undermined its moral standing and hurt its interests. One result was the 2003 Iraq War, which irreparably damaged U.S. foreign policy and was catastrophic for Iraqis.
Unsatisfying outcomes
Iraq never fully met its Gulf War’s cease-fire agreement obligations. Hussein also continued violating his citizens’ human rights. Yet at several points in the 1990s, Baghdad sought to reset its relationship with Washington and the West.
When Iraq showed a willingness to cooperate, Washington could not reciprocate. How can one negotiate with Hitler?
Regardless of what happens in Ukraine, it’s unlikely that sanctions will topple Putin’s regime. Over time, the coalition will likely fray, as the need for peace in Eastern Europe and access to Russian energy leads much of the world to come to terms with Putin.
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Samuel Helfont is an assistant professor of strategy and policy in the Naval War College program at the Naval Postgraduate School and author of “Compulsion in Religion: Saddam Hussein, Islam, and the Roots of Insurgencies in Iraq” (Oxford, 2018). The ideas expressed here are personal and do not necessarily reflect the views of any part of the U.S. Government.