This chapter examines the interwar period between the 1991 Gulf War and the 2003 invasion of Iraq, focusing specifically on the US containment strategy from 1991 to 1998. Analyzing crises such as the 1994 Kuwaiti Border Crisis, Operation Desert Strike, and Operation Desert Fox, the chapter illustrates how a coercer can use intentional coercion failure to mobilize international support for long-term containment. During this period, the United States demanded that Iraq comply with United Nations weapons inspections. However, the US increasingly preferred that coercion fail; rather than accepting Iraqi concessions that would eventually lead to the lifting of sanctions, American policymakers utilized Iraqi intransigence to justify the continued imposition of severe economic and military costs. This approach was driven by a fundamental lack of assurance – exacerbated by revelations of Iraq’s “cheat and retreat” tactics – that Saddam Hussein would ever genuinely abandon his weapons programs or regional ambitions. Ultimately, this chapter demonstrates that when a coercer does not trust a target to honor agreements, insincere coercion becomes a foreign policy tool to maintain the alliances necessary to keep an adversary perpetually weak.