at it was his destiny to fulfil theprophecy of ruling an Arab nation streching from Euphrates to the Suez. The Western and Gulf nations united together to form a coalition tofight against Iraq that followed the United Nations resolution that Iraqmust pull out of Iraq on January 15, 1991. They had several reasons forwanting Iraq out of Kuwait. "The 2 main reasons are the vast amounts oil inthe region which account for 53% of the world's known petroleum reservesand the stability of the nations that have the oil."4 The 2 biggest in theregion are Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. The Saudis were afraid that Iraq wouldinvade Saudi Arabia just like Kuwait. 4AP Press Toronto Star (February 20, 1991) A16 "The United States depends on Middle East petroleum for about 25% ofits energy needs and other Western nations even more on Middle East."4 Manyof these nations have very few oil resources and if they did it would costtoo much to develop them like the estimated 300 billion barrels of oil inthe Alberta and Saskatchewan tar sands. "Other nations like Japan have veryfew alternative sources for petroleum so they depend greatly on the oilfrom the Middle East."1 Other sources of power are generally too expensiveto be practical or still under development. So any disruption of oil fromthis region would seriously negatively affect the economies of the Westernnations, just as they were slipping into a recession which would not bevery good for the leaders of these countries at the ballot box. 1CNN The Gulf War (Video) (Atlanta, CNN News, 75 min., 1991) 4AP Press Toronto Star (January 16, 1991) A15 However going to war or even the real possibility of it would give abig short term boost to the economies of these nations by increasing theprice for a barrel of oil which would allow oil companies to make biggerprofits and there would be more exploration in North America to discovernew sources of oil. This would help boost the stock markets by increas...
