summit, the Anglo-Saxon master race as represented by Bush and Thatcher found itself in a highly
embarrassing position. Everyone knew that the worst economic plague outside of the communistbloc was the English-speaking economic depression, which held not just the United States, the
United Kingdom, and Canada but also Australia, New Zealand, and other former imperial outposts
in its grip. The continental Europeans were interested in organizing emergency aid and investment
packages for the emerging countries of eastern Europe, and the Soviet republics, but this the Anglo-
Saxons adamantly opposEuropean Community and Japan when it came to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade anded. Rather, Bush and Thatcher were on a full trade-war line against the (^)
other matters of international economics. Bush's Tex-Mex menus and country and western
entertainment programs were unable to hide an atmosphere of growing animosity.
In the following week, the Anglo-Saxon supermen were once again plunged into gloom whenGorbachov and Kohl, meeting on July 16 in the south Russian town of Mineralny Vody near
Stavropol, announced the Soviet acquiescence to the membership of united Germany in NATO.
This was an issue that Bush and Thatcher had hoped would cause a much longer delay and much
greater acrimony, but now there were no more barriers to the successful completion of the "two plus
four" talks on the future of Germany, which meant that German reunification before the end of theyear was unavoidable.
On the same day that Kohl and Gorbachov were meeting, satellite photographs monitored in the
Pentagon showed that Iraq's crack Hammurabi division, the corps d'elite of the Republican Guard,
was moving south towards the border of Kuwait. By July 17, Pentagon analysts would becontemplating new satellite photos showing the entire division, with 300 tanks and over 10,000 (^)
men, in place along the Iraq-Kuwait border. A second division, the Medina Luminous, was
beginning to arrive along the border, and a third division was marching south. [fn 29]
The disputes between Iraq and Kuwait were well-known, and the Anglo-Americans had doneeverything possible to exacerbate them. Iraq had defended Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the other Gulf (^)
Cooperation Council countries against the fanatic legions of Khomeini during the Iran-Iraq war.
Iraq had emerged from the conflict victorious, but burdened by $65 billion in foreign debt. Iraq
demanded debt relief from the rich Gulf Arabs, who had not lifted a finger for their own defense.
As for Kuwait, it had been a British puppeEmirates were each acknowledged to be exceeding their OPEC product state since 1899. Both Kuwait and the United Arabtion quotas by some 500,000 (^)
barrels per day. This was part of a strategy to keep the price of oil artificially low; the low price was
a boon to the dollar and the US banking system, and it also prevented Iraq from acquiring the
necessary funds for its postwar demobilization and reconstruction. Kuwait was also known to be
stealing oil by overpumping the Rumailia oil field, which lay along the Iraq-Kuwait border. Theborder through the Rumaila oil field was thus a bone of contention between Iraq and Kuwait, as was (^)
the ownership of Bubiyan and Warba islands, which controlled the access to Umm Qasr, Iraq's chief
port and naval base as long as the Shatt-el-Arab was disputed with Iran. It later became known that
the Emir of Kuwait was preparing further measures of economic warfare against Iraq, including the
printing of mmarket in order to producasses of counterfeit Iraqi currency notes which he was preparing to dump on thee a crisis of hyperinflation in Iraq. Many of these themes were developed (^)
by Saddam Hussein in a July 17 address in which he accused the Emir of Kuwait of participation in
a US-Zionist conspiracy to keep the price of oil depressed.
The Emir of Kuwait, Jaber el Saba, was a widely hated figure among Arabs and Moslems. He wassybaritic degenerate, fabulously wealthy, a complete parasite and nepotist, the keeper of a harem,
and the owner of slaves, especially black slaves, for domestic use in his palace. The Saba family ran
Kuwait as the private plantation of their clan, and Saba officials were notoriously cruel and stupid.
Iraq, by contrast, was a modern secular state with high rates of economic growth, and possessed one
of the highest standards of living and literacy rates in the Arab world. The status of women was one