Well, numerous governments were worried about the tensions in the Middle East, but didn’t think them too serious.

Take the Kuwaiti government. So, they were owed billions by the Iraqi regime and, to make sure it was paid, increased their oil production beyond the OPEC-assigned quota; the UAE government did the same (Fisk, 2006: 723; Naswari, 1990). The Iraqi regime threatened them multiple times and accused them of stealing from them, and on occasion they did get concerned enough to do something like put the Kuwaiti military on alert and order a limited deployment around Kuwait City. But, mostly, the Kuwaiti Emir, Jaber al-Ahmad al-Sabah, was not too worried because he was convinced that Saddam’s threats were a bluff and that, once he’d run out of steam, he’d be forced to negotiate over the problems and likely (due to his weak economic position) offer concessions favourable to the Kuwaiti government (Cordesman, 1997: 38).

This was the feeling of most governments at the time, especially in the Middle East. Nobody expected invasion, but negotiation - even as the Iraqi military build-up began, because it was just seen as part of Saddam’s bluff. Nobody expected him to be so rash as to invade Kuwait, especially not the whole thing. The US government was quite certain of this because they could see no artillery being massed on the Kuwaiti border, and didn’t imagine that anyone would attempt to go to war without artillery. They shared satellite imagery with the Kuwaiti government, who were similarly convinced there’d be no military move by the Iraqi regime (Hart, 1998: 9-10).

The worse case scenario in the eyes of the Kuwaiti government and a few regional allies was that Saddam would temporarily seize access to the Warbah and Bubiyan islands, mostly as a form of protest to speed up negotiations and get international attention on his domestic issues (Cordesman, 1997: 38).

What most governments were most concerned about was regional stability, for a variety of reasons. For the US and European governments, oil was the main priority. The US government had had its concerns about Saddam for years, and once the Iran-Iraq War was over and he became a bit less useful to them they essentially began telling him to cool off, not least once he threatened to attack Israel with chemical weapons in April 1990. Glaspie fits into this story as being there to try to ensure that regional stability, as the US State Department head, James Baker, instructed her that their government’s concern was ‘the free flow of oil’ from the Middle East to America and that she was to say that the US government, while it would be a neutral party in the Iraqi-Kuwaiti government dispute, was concerned about the Iraqi regime’s threats to use force to solve that dispute (Baker Telegram, 1990).

Personally, I’ve not read that Glaspie was tasked with improving trade relations. Her instructions for speaking with Saddam by Baker were as outlined above and, more to the point, she only discovered from the TV news during a meeting with the Iraqi Foreign Minister that the US government was cutting exports to Iraq! She was none too pleased, to say the least, and advised that the best course of action for the US government was continued neutrality in the dispute to allow Middle Eastern governments to sort out the problems themselves (USE Baghdad Telegram, July 29 1990: 2).

Amid this situation, Saddam was convinced that his planned invasion of Kuwait would be able to go ahead without a hitch. He didn’t think that the US government would intervene to stop him because he thought them too cowardly, having militarily withdrawn from Vietnam in the 1970’s and Lebanon in the 1980’s. Even if they did respond, he was confident that his military could win. In his mind, his dire economic situation was being made worse by imperialist governments and their puppets (in other words, the US government was the imperial power and the Kuwaiti and Israeli governments its puppets, as he saw it) looking to destroy Iraq. He was also convinced that there was a plot for a foreign government-instigated revolution, military coup, or outside attack to replace him with a capitalist leader owned by the imperialist governments, something which his own intelligence services reinforced in his mind (Woods, 2008: 70; 66; Brands, 2011: 513). Of course, he was also looking to establish himself as the leading regional power and unite the Arab world into one nation around Iraq as per his strain of Ba’athist ideology.

There was concern from all sides about the Iranian regime. During the Iran-Iraq War, the governments of the Gulf states, the Western governments, and others had all allied with Iraq’s dictatorship to contain the spread of the Islamic Revolution into the wider Middle East. A ceasefire was signed in 1988, but many governments in 1990 felt that Saddam ruling in Baghdad was still a necessary evil to act as a counterweight to Ayatollah Khamenei in Tehran. Thus, the status quo - with the economic and political disputes ironed out - was the top priority for all involved in the run-up to the Iraqi regime’s invasion of Kuwait in August 1990.

As an aside, this was still the case for many governments following the invasion, too. Seeing Iran’s regime as a bigger threat to their interests than Iraq’s, keeping a strong regime in Baghdad was seen as vitally necessary. This played a large part in why the Coalition forces didn’t drive for Baghdad to remove Saddam from power, and why the US government didn’t support the anti-Saddam rebellions, at the end of the war in February/March 1991 - unless Saddam could be overthrown by an Iraqi military coup who’d negotiate with the Coalition governments and be more cooperative with them, they’d rather have kept Saddam in power for stability’s sake.

So yeah, the primary concern for most governments at the time was to ensure stability in the region in large part due to needing the oil trade to continue unimpeded but also to keep out Iranian regime influence; the Kuwaiti government was particularly concerned about getting the money owed to them by the Iraqi regime; and the Iraqi regime was concerned about its pressing economic situation being made worse by the Kuwaiti government as well as feeling that their enemies were conspiring against them to topple the regime and turn Iraq into a capitalist puppet state at a time when Saddam was looking to become the regional power and unite the Arab world under his rule. Glaspie’s job was to let the Iraqi dictator know that the US government was just looking for stability and, while they wouldn’t pick a side in his dispute, they wanted his belligerent diplomacy to come to an end, seeing it as a threat to US government interests.

I hope that helps!

Sources:

Baker telegram to US Embassies (EC) (Iraqi threats) [declassified 2003] July 24 1990. Margaret Thatcher Foundation, Archive [Bush Library], Gulf War), Available at: 1990.008 prewar (94).JPG (rackcdn.com), Last accessed: 13/06/2021

Brands, Hal & Palacki, David (2012), “Conspiring Bastards”: Saddam Hussein’s Strategic View of the United States. Diplomatic History, Vol. 36 (3), pp. 625-659

Cordesman, Anthony H. (1997) The Lessons Of Modern War, Volume IV: The Gulf War. Abingdon: Routledge

Fisk, Robert (2006) The Great War For Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East. London: Harper Perennial

Nasrawi, Salah (1990) Iraq Accuses Kuwait of Violating Border, Stealing Oil. Associated Press, July 18, Available at: Iraq Accuses Kuwait of Violating Border, Stealing Oil (apnews.com), Last accessed: 13/06/2021

USE Baghdad to Washington (Arab diplomacy "our best bet") [declassified 1998] July 29 1990. Margaret Thatcher Foundation, Archive [Bush Library], Gulf War, Available at: 1990.008 prewar (108).JPG (rackcdn.com)f, Last accessed: 13/06/2021

Woods, Kevin (2008) Iraqi Perspective Project Phase II: Um Al-Ma’arik (The Mother of all Battles): Operational and Strategic Insights from an Iraqi Perspective, Volume I. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press