The American Nation A History of the United States, Combined Volume (14th Edition)

IRELAND

ATLANTIC

OCEAN

North

Sea

Baltic

Sea

Black Sea

PolandSolidarity Party

sweeps elections, 1989.

Lithuaniadeclares

independence, 1990.

Latvia and Estonia begin

process of separation

from Soviet Union, 1990.

Soviet Union Dissolves, 1991;

Russia and 10 former Soviet

republics form Commonwealth of

Independent States.

Yugoslavia Country

disintegrates, 1991–1992.

Communist regimes

collapse, 1989.

Czechoslovakia Communist leadership

ousted, 1989; country divided into

Czech Republic and Slovakia, 1993.

Germany Berlin Wall

breached, 1989; East and West

Germany reunited, 1990.

1

2

3

4

(^12)
3 4
CROATIA
BOSNIA AND
HERZEGOVINA
MONTENEGRO
KOSOVO
GREAT
BRITAIN
ESTONIA
LATVIA
LITHUANIALITHUANIA
POLAND
SLOVAKIA
SLOVENIA
MACEDONIA
CZECH
REP.
HUNGARY ROMANIA
BELARUS
UKRAINE
RUSSIA
RUSSIA
YUGO.
DENMARK
BELGIUM
AUSTRIA
LUX.
SWITZ.
GREECE
BULGARIA
ALBANIA
TURKEY
GERMANY
NETHERLANDS
FRANCE
ITALY
SPAIN
Formerly part of the
Soviet Union
Formerly part of the
Soviet-Bloc
The War in the Persian Gulf 815

The War in the Persian Gulf

Although Reagan had provided economic assistance to
Saddam Hussein of Iraq to prevent Iran from winning
the Iran-Iraq war, few in the administration
were enthusiastic about the Iraqi dictator.
For years Saddam had been crushing the
Kurds, an ethnic minority in northern Iraq
that sought independence. In 1987 the U.S.
State Department reported on his “wide-
spread destruction and bulldozing of
Kurdish villages.” In March 1988, after
Kurdish rebels had supported an Iranian
advance into Iraq near Halabja, a mostly
Kurdish city, Saddam’s troops dropped mus-
tard gas, sarin, and other chemical weapons
on the city. Some 5,000 civilians died.
In August 1990, Saddam launched an
all-out attack on Iraq’s tiny neighbor to
the south, the oil-rich sheikdom of
Kuwait. Saddam hoped to swallow up
Kuwait, thus increasing Iraq’s already
large oil reserves to about 25 percent of
the world’s total. His soldiers overran
Kuwait swiftly, then systematically carried

off everything of value they could bring back to

Iraq. Within a week Saddam annexed Kuwait and

massed troops along the border of neighboring

Saudi Arabia.

The Collapse of Communism in Eastern EuropeWhen Gorbachev withdrew Soviet troops from Eastern Europe, the communist regimes there
collapsed rapidly. The Soviet Union itself disintegrated.

As the routed Iraqi army fled Kuwait, it ignited (literally) an ecological disaster by

setting fire to the Kuwaiti oil fields. Here American soldiers advance past a burning oil

well; it took many months before all the wells could be extinguished.