Word: gorbachev
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Whatever Moscow's motives, the allies quickly concluded in a round of phone calls that the Soviets had not come up with anything they could accept. Bush, speaking for all of them, asserted that Gorbachev's plan "falls well short of what would be required" for peace...
...ballet began with a Baghdad announcement Friday, Feb. 15, indicating Iraq's "readiness to deal with" the basic U.N. resolution demanding withdrawal from Kuwait -- subject to farfetched conditions; one demanded reparations for allied bombing. But though Bush promptly denounced the proposal as a "cruel hoax," Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev proclaimed himself encouraged enough to invite Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz to Moscow for new talks. Aziz arrived on Sunday, Feb. 17, by a roundabout route that underscored the total air supremacy the allies have achieved over Iraq. He was driven across the Iranian border, then helicoptered to Tehran, and flew...
...Nonetheless, it has become increasingly obvious that Moscow will pursue its own interests, which are not necessarily the same as those of the U.S. and its allies. Domestically, Gorbachev must appease the military, KGB and Communist Party hard-liners he increasingly relies on to maintain his authority. They have been bitterly critical of his alleged kowtowing to Washington. At a time of seething separatism that threatens the very existence of the Soviet Union, Gorbachev also must avoid antagonizing the tens of millions of Muslims in the U.S.S.R.'s Central Asian and Transcaucasian republics, and they tend to sympathize with Saddam...
Privately, the coalition partners decided to go further and spell out what they would accept. Their proposals were sent by Bush to Gorbachev Tuesday night, presumably to be relayed to Aziz when he returned to Moscow after communicating the Soviet proposal to Saddam...
...pullout was lengthened to a week because some allies thought the original 96 hours was simply impossible; Washington hoped seven days still was not enough time for Saddam to pull out all his tanks, other armor and artillery. Rather astonishingly, the allied firmness set off sympathetic reverberations in Moscow. Gorbachev spoke with Bush by phone for 33 minutes Thursday and with both the President and Secretary of State James Baker for 72 minutes before the allied ultimatum on Friday. Possibly Gorbachev realized saving Saddam was a lost cause, hardly worth alienating the Western allies. In any case, even . before Bush...