David R. Henderson

About the Author: David R. Henderson, an associate professor of economics at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, was a senior energy economist during the Reagan administration. This article was written in October 1990.

President Saddam Hussein of Iraq has no qualms about torturing or even murdering innocent people. If he should manage to hold on to Kuwait and to capture Saudi Arabia, he would have access to even greater wealth than he has in Iraq. No doubt, he would attempt to use that wealth to strengthen his military, maybe even to speed up development of nuclear weapons. Sad- dam could then be an even bigger menace to peace in the Middle East than he was before he invaded Kuwait.

But many Americans—including President George Bush...