On Jan. 22, 1991, Middle East king thug Saddam Hussein launched a flurry of Scud missiles into a Tel Aviv neighborhood. There were over a hundred Israeli casualties, including several deaths.

“The attack on Israel, the most destructive launched by the Iraqis in six days of war, demolished apartment buildings and storefronts,” reported the Washington Post. “The Israeli deaths, all apparently from heart attacks, also raised the issue of whether Israel’s government, widely praised for not retaliating after two earlier Scud attacks, would now strike back.”

The Bush White House condemned Iraq’s “brutal act of terror against innocent victims.” It also commended Israel for “remarkable restraint in the face of this aggression.”

Why did Saddam do this? Because the United States a week earlier had sent troops into Kuwait to liberate that country from the Iraqi invasion in August 1990. The cynical Saddam responded with an attack not on America but Israel. The Bush administration had assembled against Iraq an extraordinary coalition of nearly 30 countries, including much of the Arab world, which didn’t like Saddam Hussein. But the Arabs also didn’t like Jews. Saddam hoped that by attacking Israel, he would bring Arabs to his side. And indeed, right on cue, Palestinian Arabs in the West Bank stood on their rooftops cheering as Saddam’s Scuds soared overhead.