"In the 80's he was your ally and gassed his own people and the US did nothing."

What did France, Germany, or Belgium do? What did any country do?

Sure, America is better nation than other countries so there has always been an unique expectation in regards to the US. But to say Iraq was "your ally" instead of our ally is a bit much for an European to say- because Europe had better relations with Iraq than US and Europeans are the ones who sold more weapons than US to Iraq- including anything to do the chemical weapons. There was probably a few European embassies in in Iraq, whereas there was not an American Embassy in Iraq.

Iraq was obviously the Soviet's client state among the "non-aligned" states of the middle east. So if Iraq was *anyone's* ally they were the Soviet's ally. Whereas of the Arab countries, Turkey and Saudi Arabia were the most on the American side.

So, Raoul, you can say Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Israel are and were at that time your allies, but from a European it's basically lying to say Iraq was "your ally". We were more an ally with Soviets- at least we had embassies in the Soviet Union. Sure, we were pointing nukes at each other and we in the Cold War which at one point had skated near the brink of a nuclear war- and the end of the world as we know it.

Now, it is true that Iran has been at war with the US ever since '79. It's not a war that we started nor even one that the America public pays much attention to. Though Iran in it's foaming madness is not exclusively at war with the US- they are also conducting war in Lebanon and elsewhere.

So since at that time Iraq wasn't in a declared war with the US and there were fighting Iran. And btw, not only was Iraq fighting Iran, the Iraq wanted it known to other Arab countries that Saddam was fighting this war on their behalf- though maybe not something these leaders were particularly happy about, especially considering what a poor job he was doing in that department, but nevertheless these arab countries wanted to demonstrate their support. And of course of all the Arab countries Saudi Arabia one of them which could do the most to help Iraq- and had most interest considering it's location in the region.

So, the US did not impose sanctions on Iraq like they had imposed sanctions on Iran- not that it would matter since Iran could easily and did cut off oil tankers from going to Iraq. The only really significant thing the US could is force Europe not to have trade with Iraq- but that would been seen as rather absurd, even if this was at all politically possible. And of course, even crazier for Belgium citizen to bitch about it and blame the US.