More Kuwaiti Government Thinks About It

     The more the Kuwaiti government thinks about it the less it likes the speech Saddam Hussein gave the day before yesterday. All though it appeared to contain an grudging apology for the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, it also contained lots of other, more sinister language.

     The Kuwaiti officials now read it as a series of threats against them, and they have therefore sent a memo of protest to the United Nations. They see it as accusing them of treason against the Arab world for hosting US troops, and they read it as a threat against Westerners in Kuwait.

     They also worry that it was meant to create a division between the Kuwaiti people (many of whom, while they despise Saddam, are uneasy about cooperating in an attack on a fellow Arab country launched unilaterally by the US, a Western power). As a result, the Kuwaitis are setting up popular demonstrations against Saddam’s letter. Even the Islamic party will join in this endeavor (since Saddam is a secular nationalist, they have reason to despise him, but surely are also torn by their dislike of the US and any projection of its power in the region.