Bible Time

Gorbachev's Soviet Union at the Persian Gulf War

Having gained the office of General Secratary of the Communist Party, Gorbachev was running the Soviet Union. The prophetic outline from the dates ahead of the Persian Gulf War pointed at the Soviet Union. Then war broke out in Kuwait. The two venues are linked as Iraq ran a Soviet supplied army.

Background

Prior to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait the previous predicted date was Wednesday, May 31, 1989. On that date the Soviet Union's leaders were meeting to figure out how to handle the results of an election. On the previous Friday, May 26, 1989, the first election for a competitively elected congress in the Soviet Union in 70 years had been held. They would meet for the first time on Saturday, June 3, 1989.

Gorbachev had taken this radical step because things were not well within the Soviet Union. The biggest problem, one that would surface near the end of this story was money. The Communist system could not compete with the free market systems found in the west. Gorbachev had already fiddled with the economic system of the Soviet Union and would do so again. These would turn out to be to little, to late, and the Soviet Union would be gone by early 1992.

The lack of funds, and the inability of the Soviet system to keep up militarily would soon be revealed in the sands of Kuwait.

The military of Iraq had been trained and supplied by the Soviets. Saddam had made formal visits to Moscow, they had a history of advisors in Iraq. The Soviet's strategy for conducting war was about to be tested as the west would liberate Kuwait.

There was not much to indicate the close linkage between Iraq and the Soviets in the headlines of the time. The linkage is seen through the timeline. All the previous wars in the Middle East, from Israel's independence to Yom Kippor in 1973 had been fought in proxy between the west, the United States, and the Soviet Union. The United States had funded and supplied the Israeli army while the Soviets funded the "other side" whom ever that happened to be. This time the attack had not been on Israel directly, though we'll explore Iraq's attempts at that here shortly. Even so, the Americans had to radically restrain the Israeli's, even providing anti-missile batteries to Israel to defend against Scuds.

The split was seen here, just like it had been seen at ever other war since the independence of Israel.