In 1980, in launching the war with Iran, Saddam Hussein had made a grave miscalculation, one that had almost cost him his position: He had assumed that it would take only a few weeks to knock off Iran. He was wrong, and Iraq came close to being defeated. A decade later, in 1990, he assumed that he could swiftly absorb Kuwait and confront the world with a fait accompli, which would arouse some complaints but little else. In the meantime, he would have solved his financial problems overnight and would have acquired the wherewithal to finance his grandiose military and political ambitions. He
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