في الثاني من أغسطس الحالي مرت الذكرى الخامسة والثلاثون على غزو العراق للكويت، لم يكن الغزو نتيجة خلاف سياسي أو اقتصادي كما ادعى صدام حسين حينها، ولو كان كذلك لاستطاع الوسطاء حل القضية حتى بعد حصول الغزو بأسابيع، فقد رفض العراق أي حلحلة لموقفه، بل كان هدفه الاستيلاء على سلطة الكويت أولاً ومن ثم ثرواتها.
ألم يتهم صدام الرئيس حسني مبارك -بشهادة مبارك نفسه- بأنه رخو وليس صلباً، فقد اعتمد صدام على أن كل تلك الضغوطات سوف تنتهي ويتآكل الموقف الدولي من الغزو، وبالتالي يفوز بكعكة الخليج.
يقول الجنرال «نورمان شوارتزكوف» قائد قوات التحالف في حرب تحرير الكويت في كتابه الشهير: إن قوات التحالف التي تدفقت إلى المملكة العربية السعودية بداية الغزو كانت لمنع صدام من التمدد جنوباً باتجاه السعودية، ثم تولى الملك فهد بن عبدالعزيز -رحمه الله- إقناع الأمريكان بتشكيل تحالف سعودي دولي لتحرير الكويت. لقد أخذ الفهد على عاتقه تلك المهمة ونجح فيها.
انتهت الحرب وخرج العراق من الكويت، وعاد الكويتيون وآل الصباح العائلة الحاكمة الكريمة إلى بلادهم، لكن شيئاً واحداً لم ينتهِ، وهو طمع بعض حكومات وشعوب دول الإقليم في ثروات الخليج العربي، وهذه ليست تهمة يتهربون منها، فهي إحدى أولى أولويات المثقف قبل السياسي.
لكن الأهم عندهم هو كيف يفككون العلاقة الوثيقة بين حكام الخليج وشعوبهم، فهم يعلمون يقيناً أنهم لو استطاعوا تفكيك تلك العلاقة فمن السهولة الاستيلاء على الثروات لاحقاً، ولذلك عملوا على مدى عقود على ضرب مصداقية ومكانة العائلات الحاكمة، وتفكيك المجتمعات الخليجية، ثم إضرام النار بين شعوبها بالكراهية والأحقاد والخلافات، بل وصل الأمر لمحاولة تنفيذ انقلابات ضدها، وأخيراً الغزو المباشر، الذي هدف إلى الإتيان بعملاء يحكمون يمكّنونهم من رقاب الخليجيين.
وما كان العداء للأسر الحاكمة الخليجية إلا بسبب عدم القدرة على التحكّم بالقرار السياسي والمالي لدول الخليج، ولو سمحت تلك الدول باستباحة قرارها السيادي والمالي لما جوبهت بكل تلك الحروب الإعلامية والاتهامات، وفي يقيني أن سبب غزو العراق كان فشل صدام في السيطرة على قرار الكويت ومن ثم ثرواتها، ولا أدل من ذلك تشكيل حكومة صورية أول أيام الغزو.
البحرين تعرّضت لمؤامرة كبرى بداية ما يسمى الخريف العربي، وكان المستهدف رمزية الأسرة الحاكمة. الإمارات العربية المتحدة تعرّضت هي الأخرى لخيانة من تنظيم الإخوان المسلمين الذي شكّل تنظيماً عصابياً للاستيلاء على السلطة. السعودية تعرّضت مبكراً لمحاولات المتطرفين زعزعة استقرارها بدءاً من تفجيرات الخبر 1996، وتفجيرات الرياض وينبع والخبر ومكة المكرمة، فضلاً عما تعرّضت له الكويت طوال تاريخها من زعزعة لاستقرارها وأخيراً غزو غاشم.
ومع كل الحملات والتشويه المتعمد، سقطت محاولات الفصل بين الأسر الحاكمة وشعوبها، بسبب نجاح الأسر الحاكمة في توظيف الثروات وتوزيعها على مواطنيها بل وحتى المقيمين، فالتعليم، والتأهيل، والتنمية الاجتماعية، والرعاية الصحية، والبنية التحتية المتطورة، وجودة الحياة، ومنح القروض الميسرة للإسكان، كلها رسّخت ولاءً يصعب كسره.
لم تخشَ الأسر الحاكمة في الخليج من شعوبها، بل ساعدتهم في التعلم، والتحضر، ليكونوا البنية الأساسية للقفز بدولهم إلى ما هي عليه اليوم من مكانة اقتصادية وتعليمية وحضارية دولية.
الكراهية لم تبقِ بين يدي صدام وأمثاله، بل تجاوزتهم إلى عقول ونفوس الكثير، ولعلنا نتذكر كيف أن الكويت في الستينات والسبعينات -انطلاقاً من موقف عروبي- احتضنت المقاومة الفلسطينية، بل وتحوّلت صحافتها إلى منبر مفتوح للسردية الفلسطينية، ومع ذلك اختصر ياسر عرفات علاقاته بإنكار المعروف، وتأييد غزو الكويت، والارتماء خلف صدام، إذ كان عرفات وبقية المتحالفين يتوقعون سقوط بقية دول الخليج واحدة تلو الأخرى في شباك لصوص النفط الجدد.
الحقد وتمني زوال الثروات الخليجية قديم قدم ظهور النفط في بوادي الخليج. وللتذكير فقد ظهر البترول بكل أنواعه ومشتقاته في كثير من الدول في الإقليم، لكن النجاح الخليجي كان في القدرة على توظيف تلك الثروات الناضبة وتحويلها لاقتصاد مستدام، ولذلك فإن ثروة الخليج الحقيقية ليست في النفط فقط، بل في الأسر الحاكمة التي استطاعت إدارة تلك الثروات وتعظيم أثرها.
تابع قناة عكاظ على الواتساب
On August 2nd of this year, we marked the thirty-fifth anniversary of Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. The invasion was not the result of a political or economic dispute, as Saddam Hussein claimed at the time. If it had been, mediators could have resolved the issue even weeks after the invasion, but Iraq rejected any resolution to its position. Its goal was to seize control of Kuwait first and then its wealth.
Didn’t Saddam accuse President Hosni Mubarak—by Mubarak's own testimony—of being weak and not tough? Saddam relied on the belief that all those pressures would eventually dissipate and that the international stance on the invasion would erode, thus allowing him to claim the Gulf's riches.
General Norman Schwarzkopf, commander of the coalition forces in the Gulf War, stated in his famous book that the coalition forces that flowed into Saudi Arabia at the beginning of the invasion were to prevent Saddam from expanding southward toward Saudi Arabia. King Fahd bin Abdulaziz—may God have mercy on him—then took it upon himself to convince the Americans to form an international Saudi coalition to liberate Kuwait. Fahd undertook this mission and succeeded.
The war ended, Iraq withdrew from Kuwait, and the Kuwaitis and the ruling Al-Sabah family returned to their country. However, one thing did not end: the greed of some governments and peoples in the region for the wealth of the Arabian Gulf. This is not an accusation they can evade; it is one of the primary priorities of the intellectual before the politician.
But what is most important to them is how to dismantle the close relationship between the Gulf rulers and their peoples. They know for certain that if they can dismantle that relationship, it would be easy to seize the wealth later. Therefore, for decades, they have worked to undermine the credibility and status of the ruling families, dismantle Gulf societies, and ignite hatred, grudges, and disputes among their peoples. They even attempted to carry out coups against them, culminating in direct invasion, which aimed to bring in clients who would enable them to control the Gulf peoples.
The animosity towards the Gulf ruling families stemmed from their inability to control the political and financial decisions of the Gulf states. If those states had allowed their sovereign and financial decisions to be violated, they would not have faced all those media wars and accusations. I firmly believe that the reason for Iraq's invasion was Saddam's failure to control Kuwait's decisions and subsequently its wealth, as evidenced by the formation of a puppet government in the early days of the invasion.
Bahrain faced a major conspiracy at the beginning of what is called the Arab Spring, targeting the symbolism of the ruling family. The United Arab Emirates also faced betrayal from the Muslim Brotherhood, which formed a gang-like organization to seize power. Saudi Arabia was early on subjected to attempts by extremists to destabilize it, starting with the Khobar bombings in 1996, and the bombings in Riyadh, Yanbu, Khobar, and Mecca, in addition to what Kuwait has faced throughout its history of instability and finally a brutal invasion.
Despite all the campaigns and deliberate distortions, attempts to separate the ruling families from their peoples failed due to the success of the ruling families in utilizing wealth and distributing it to their citizens and even residents. Education, training, social development, healthcare, advanced infrastructure, quality of life, and the provision of easy loans for housing have all solidified a loyalty that is hard to break.
The ruling families in the Gulf did not fear their peoples; rather, they helped them learn and develop, becoming the foundational structure that propelled their countries to their current economic, educational, and cultural standing on the international stage.
Hatred did not remain solely in the hands of Saddam and his ilk; it transcended them to the minds and souls of many. Perhaps we remember how Kuwait, in the 1960s and 1970s—from an Arab nationalist position—embraced the Palestinian resistance, and its press became an open platform for the Palestinian narrative. Yet, Yasser Arafat reduced his relationships by denying the known and supporting the invasion of Kuwait, throwing himself behind Saddam, as Arafat and the other allies expected the rest of the Gulf states to fall one after another into the traps of the new oil thieves.
Hatred and the desire for the downfall of Gulf wealth have existed since the emergence of oil in the Gulf deserts. To remind, oil in all its types and derivatives has emerged in many countries in the region, but the Gulf's success lay in its ability to utilize those depleting resources and transform them into a sustainable economy. Therefore, the true wealth of the Gulf is not just in oil, but in the ruling families that have managed those resources and maximized their impact.
Didn’t Saddam accuse President Hosni Mubarak—by Mubarak's own testimony—of being weak and not tough? Saddam relied on the belief that all those pressures would eventually dissipate and that the international stance on the invasion would erode, thus allowing him to claim the Gulf's riches.
General Norman Schwarzkopf, commander of the coalition forces in the Gulf War, stated in his famous book that the coalition forces that flowed into Saudi Arabia at the beginning of the invasion were to prevent Saddam from expanding southward toward Saudi Arabia. King Fahd bin Abdulaziz—may God have mercy on him—then took it upon himself to convince the Americans to form an international Saudi coalition to liberate Kuwait. Fahd undertook this mission and succeeded.
The war ended, Iraq withdrew from Kuwait, and the Kuwaitis and the ruling Al-Sabah family returned to their country. However, one thing did not end: the greed of some governments and peoples in the region for the wealth of the Arabian Gulf. This is not an accusation they can evade; it is one of the primary priorities of the intellectual before the politician.
But what is most important to them is how to dismantle the close relationship between the Gulf rulers and their peoples. They know for certain that if they can dismantle that relationship, it would be easy to seize the wealth later. Therefore, for decades, they have worked to undermine the credibility and status of the ruling families, dismantle Gulf societies, and ignite hatred, grudges, and disputes among their peoples. They even attempted to carry out coups against them, culminating in direct invasion, which aimed to bring in clients who would enable them to control the Gulf peoples.
The animosity towards the Gulf ruling families stemmed from their inability to control the political and financial decisions of the Gulf states. If those states had allowed their sovereign and financial decisions to be violated, they would not have faced all those media wars and accusations. I firmly believe that the reason for Iraq's invasion was Saddam's failure to control Kuwait's decisions and subsequently its wealth, as evidenced by the formation of a puppet government in the early days of the invasion.
Bahrain faced a major conspiracy at the beginning of what is called the Arab Spring, targeting the symbolism of the ruling family. The United Arab Emirates also faced betrayal from the Muslim Brotherhood, which formed a gang-like organization to seize power. Saudi Arabia was early on subjected to attempts by extremists to destabilize it, starting with the Khobar bombings in 1996, and the bombings in Riyadh, Yanbu, Khobar, and Mecca, in addition to what Kuwait has faced throughout its history of instability and finally a brutal invasion.
Despite all the campaigns and deliberate distortions, attempts to separate the ruling families from their peoples failed due to the success of the ruling families in utilizing wealth and distributing it to their citizens and even residents. Education, training, social development, healthcare, advanced infrastructure, quality of life, and the provision of easy loans for housing have all solidified a loyalty that is hard to break.
The ruling families in the Gulf did not fear their peoples; rather, they helped them learn and develop, becoming the foundational structure that propelled their countries to their current economic, educational, and cultural standing on the international stage.
Hatred did not remain solely in the hands of Saddam and his ilk; it transcended them to the minds and souls of many. Perhaps we remember how Kuwait, in the 1960s and 1970s—from an Arab nationalist position—embraced the Palestinian resistance, and its press became an open platform for the Palestinian narrative. Yet, Yasser Arafat reduced his relationships by denying the known and supporting the invasion of Kuwait, throwing himself behind Saddam, as Arafat and the other allies expected the rest of the Gulf states to fall one after another into the traps of the new oil thieves.
Hatred and the desire for the downfall of Gulf wealth have existed since the emergence of oil in the Gulf deserts. To remind, oil in all its types and derivatives has emerged in many countries in the region, but the Gulf's success lay in its ability to utilize those depleting resources and transform them into a sustainable economy. Therefore, the true wealth of the Gulf is not just in oil, but in the ruling families that have managed those resources and maximized their impact.
