Sykes-Picot at 100 (part 2) (David Gardner, ASPI The Strategist)

Before toppling Saddam Hussein in 2003, much of the west backed the Iraqi dictator during the 1980–88 war against Iran. Iraq’s Shia majority fought against their coreligionists in the Shia Islamic Republic during that war. Things started to change after the first Gulf War in 1990–91, in response to Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. In its messy aftermath, the west encouraged Shia and Kurds to rise against Saddam, and then left them to their bloody fate. Scroll forward to 2003 and it’s unsurprising that Iraqi Shia came to place more faith in Iran than the west, and still do

http://www.aspistrategist.org.au/sykes-picot-100-part-2/