The Persian Gulf Briefing

The Persian Gulf Briefing

The Persian Gulf had been the centre of attraction to both the USA and Great Britain because of its oil-rich deposits. Consequently, the U.S. authorities had high levels of sensitivity to the area. Running down to 1990 the USA has had a very strong security to the territory. This was also in line with the long term policy that had been set forth by the U.S. federal government (Loaa, 2017).  USA had at some point used military force to safeguard the area to restrain the Iraqi’s inversion to Kuwait. Besides the Federal government also used economic sanctions against Iraq as a way of restricting the invasion that the Iraq government wanted to express in the area.  However, despite the attempts by the USA to quell the feuds in the region, there is little, if any, persuasive evidence to indicate that Iraq will back off from its pursuit of war and acquisition of gold-rich territories of Kuwait and other nations in the Middle East. Besides, prolonging the present prevailing situation may turn out to be detrimental to the U.S. government since the cost of maintaining its forces in the region would prove to be costly in the long run (Gordon, 2015). Besides, political analysts have raised a red flag on the presence of USA military officers in the gulf, citing that it would increase political tension and consequently lead to an uprising against Kuwait by countries allied to Iraq. Such a move would prove detrimental to Kuwait as a nation and the U.S. as an economic investor.

Apart from the presence of the USA in the region, there has been a political battle between Iraq and the Islamic State. The Iraqi government and her allies fought the so-called the Operation we were coming to Nineveh between 2016 and 2017 and managed to conquer the city of Mosul on January 24 2017. The conquest of Mosul created a lot of tension in the region, making business activities to reduce significantly. The Islamic State ISIS has been a thorn on the flesh to the USA, and the federal government introduced alternative approaches such as establishing a new military base in Anbar Province as well as sending military trainers to help Iraq in recapturing the city of Ramadi (Tehran Times 2019). The use of military power and especially the attempt by the U.S. to form an army coalition is one of the setbacks that made her lose the grip in the Persian Gulf fiasco.  The Arabs learned the American political tricks and later on turned out to be rebellious.  When Iraq rebelled after grasping the military manoeuvres by the USA, the federal government lost its control. It is, however, essential to report that the economic embargoes that the federal government employed at some point in time proved to be beneficial bearing that Iraq was made to depend on the USA (Gordon & Trainor, 2016). It is therefore recommended that the application of economic bottlenecks would prove to be effective than the military approaches. After the 2017 conquest, the Iranian government has established tension with the American government in what has been termed as interference with the sovereignty of the Arab nations by the USA. Consequently, stress has been brawling again in the Persian Gulf. A diplomatic approach would be more profitable to the USA since it would enable them to establish a kind of memorandum of understanding that would allow her to continue operating in the region with little resistance (Cordesman, 2020).

References

Cordesman, A. H. (January 2, 2020). America’s Failed Strategy in the Middle East: Losing Iraq and the Gulf. Center for Strategic and International Studies

Gordon, M. R. (June 9, 2015). U.S. Embracing a New Approach on Battling ISIS in Iraq. The New York Times

Gordon, M.  R. & Trainor, B. E. (2016). The Endgame: The Inside Story of the Struggle for Iraq, from George W. Bush to Barack Obama. New York: Pantheon Books.

Loaa, A. (January 4 2017). “Thousands more Iraqis flee Mosul as military advances”. Iraqi News.

Tehran Times (August 10, 2019). U.S. attempt to form a military coalition in the Persian Gulf failed miserably: general. Tehran Times