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December 7, 2012 Hal Brands (Duke University) Conspiring Bastards: This paper uses newly available Iraqi records to investigate Saddam Hussein's perceptions of the United States from the time he came to power in the late 1960s and 1970s through the invasion of Kuwait in 1990. It seeks to understand what Saddam thought about American aims and policies in the Middle East, how U.S. support for Iraq during the 1980s influenced those views, and what impact these perceptions had on the decision to invade Kuwait in 1990. The findings of the paper indicate that key aspects of the historiography on U.S.-Iraq relations—particularly the "green light" thesis regarding the invasion of Kuwait—are in need of revision. Hal Brands is Assistant Professor of Public Policy and History at Duke University. He is the author of Latin America's Cold War (2010) and From Berlin to Baghdad: America's Search for Purpose in the Post-Cold War World (2008). Co-sponsored by the Triangle Institute for Security Studies |