[Rybak]

Didn't Saddam know the forces that would be arrayed against him if he undertook this invasion. This seems like massive failure on Saddam's part.

Why would he undertake such an operation knowing that his forces would be repulsed and Iraq's influence in the region would limited through devastating sanctions. Just seems like a dumb move all around.

[Potemkin]

He hadn't got his head around the fact that the Cold War had ended. Back then, the Soviet Union would have put its nuclear umbrella over Saddam's head, and that would have been that. Without the bipolar world of the Cold War, Saddam's military adventurism was simply too dangerous to be an option for him - his failure to understand this cost him everything.

[Sithsaber]

Oil mostly. He bullshited that the kuwaitis were side drilling into Iraq than just said fuck it and attacked.

[Potemkin]

The Kuwaitis really were side-drilling ("I drink up your milkshake. I drink it up!"). Needless to say, this infuriated Saddam, who didn't regard Kuwait as a legitimate state anyway.

[Smilin' Dave]

It may not have been a strictly Cold War thing. After all Saddam had sat down with an American diplomat prior to the invasion, if his only concern was Russian/Soviet support he might not have bothered (or at least insisted on talks with Russian diplomats present). Like Russia, the US and even some European countries had supported Iraq during the Iran-Iraq War. So Saddam might have figured he was sweet with everyone and hence no one would actually do anything if he attacked.

He might have even gotten the wrong impression from the afore mentioned diplomate (April Glaspie) or he simply wanted to believe he had a green light.

Perhaps he thought if he could take all of Kuwait in one go, before anyone could react, that the world would just accept the situation. In some respects if the US hadn't have been worried about Saudi Arabia as the next target this might have been true.

Finally he might have gotten a falsely inflated sense of his own cleverness, and of his army's own ability, as a result of the Iran-Iraq War. Dictators tend not to have people around them explaining that they fucked up or that they had a near miss because of their stupidity, and Saddam might have figured he could somehow outfox and/or outfight any form of intervention.

[Potemkin]

Finally he might have gotten a falsely inflated sense of his own cleverness, and of his army's own ability, as a result of the Iran-Iraq War. Dictators tend not to have people around them explaining that they fucked up or that they had a near miss because of their stupidity, and Saddam might have figured he could somehow outfox and/or outfight any form of intervention.

I suspect that may have been the root of the problem - his deluded belief in his own cleverness as a diplomat and as a military strategist. His bizarre attempts at military 'strategy' towards the end of the first Gulf War certainly suggest this - he seemed to think he could 'outwit' the American military commanders simply by doing random and unpredictable things which defied all military logic.

[Smilin' Dave]

That actually sounds a bit like the 'Mad Man Nixon' schtick... only Nixon was considerably more adroit in his manipulations.

[starman2003]

His bizarre attempts at military 'strategy' towards the end of the first Gulf War

According to Pollack, the Iraqis beat the Iranians after expanding their republican guard and adopting scripting from Egyptian advisors. As for the end of the Cold War, I don't think it was so much a soviet nuclear umbrella but the fact that NATO forces were now freed to go to the gulf en masse.