Photo by Library of Congress on Unsplash
Note: I composed this blog back on 5/18/2016 per my records, but then again this could just be the date of the old print-out I used; not totally sure. In any event, I composed this no later than then. I also altered this for spelling, punctuation, SEO-ing, and that's it, save for italicizing one phrase in Latin.
The Iraq War Started with Desert Storm…
Whenever I think of George Bush and His Iraq War, I inevitably look back to his father, and the Persian Gulf
War, two decades previous. It was a warm August day in 1990 when the news came over the radio that
Kuwait was invaded, and events were set in motion.
I had always loved war histories growing up, and here in front of me was a chance to follow a major
military operation in real-time over the news wires, and certainly didn't pass up the biggest foreign
involvement since Vietnam. Via radio, cable, and broadcast, I stayed tuned, and listened, enthralled.
The night in 1991, when the Storm was unleashed, I recall well staying glued to our cathode-ray tv,
channel turned to CNN. To say “excited” doesn't begin to cover it.
And it ended well—well, mostly. We wonned, and hardly a man died, even if Saddam stayed in power.
In largely an act of remorse, the senior Bush erected no-fly-zones, and sanctions to contain him, and
largely left it at that.
Ah, but something was only beginning.
The Road to Iraqi Freedom
In the years that followed, Saddam emerged in pop culture as something of a boogeyman, and a
recurring low-level headache, reminding us that we'd never finished the job, and fighter pilots were
still risking their lives to contain him. And, nobody liked the fact he'd never been fully dis-armed.
South Park made him into cartoonish mischief maker; in the Hot Shot movie franchise, he made
both—the first, in cameo, and in the second, as the main villain. He also made the Sunday Funnies,
too.
Am I the only one that remembers?
Beyond that, in the wake of the Desert Storm, and more excitingly, at the end of the Cold War, and
the Soviet Union's breakup, US confidence had pretty much recovered. In light of that, how the war
ended seemed especially annoying.
And, there were also intermittent incidents, coming outta Iraq, that had people worried, like when he
pushed out inspectors, bullied the Kurds, and issued incendiary declarations. Increasingly, our
sanction-allies were getting antsy, and our credibility was on the line.
And this was the Clinton presidency, no less. Entering the 2000 election, Gore's team was seen as the
Iraq hawks, not Dubya's. It didn't matter much to most voters, but to this twenty-two-year-old, it did
to me. I still voted to Bush, but I never really was that enthused; John McCain was my first choice,
and for the record, I've mourned the fact he lost the nomination, ever since.
I didn't have much expectations over Bush concerning Iraq, but I wasn't really beating on a war
drum, either. The time just wasn't right—and then the 11th occurred. I was the only one I knew that
wasn't very interested in invading Afghanistan, and that was because of our Iraq commitments.
I also wasn't wild about our hastily-planned autumn offensive versus the Taliban with Rashid Dostum, of the Northern
the Northern Alliance. A primitive offensive? On horses? With approaching winter? It reeked of failure, to
me—failure, and political considerations taking precedence over the martial. I was pleasantly
surprised, but I was still focused on Iraq—as, it seemed, were most of the policymakers.
Afghanistan was a sideshow, right? Bin Laden came from Saudi Arabia, and he had formed al Qaida
because of anger over our continued military involvement there, out of all our anti-Saddam efforts.
Our restraint after Desert Storm just couldn't catch us a break—but could crumple skyscrapers.
People keep complaining about Bush using weapons of mass destruction as the casus belli for war,
but that was largely for legal-political reasons; as is, everyone, even the French, agreed that Saddam
had them, and that was certainly less than good. After all, when Obama called for congressional
support of his infamous “red line” back in 2013, he used the same tack as Bush, and for the same
reasons—which may well have been an error, given the outcome, but does explain something, I think.
Out of all the reasons for ridding the earth of Saddam, weapons of mass destruction didn't even
register. To me, it was all about architecting a new Middle East—a better one. Oh, I never made
a dime off of oil speculation. Can't speak for other neoconservatives, but that was true at least for
me.
I had long wanted Saddam eliminated, and I certainly wasn't alone, but how? I certainly never imagined
it would occur the way it would, that's for sure. I always figured the US would peruse itself on one of
Saddam's recurring incidents, and just lay the hammer down in response.
One proposal, I later heard of, in a magazine I'd read around the time of the invasion, was to use our
aircraft to establish and defend a beach-head made of refugees, which would be expanded in time.
At the time, even then, I was puzzled why this was never tried; I certainly wasn't gloating, that's for
sure.
I was worried even then over the bad blood for and against the invasion, and truly wasn't interested in
its continuance, given it could lead to...the increased political bitterness of today. A minimalist
approach, not all that dissimilar from the Northern Alliance I'd been against the year before, seemed
more than satisfactory, and quite possibly more palatable to national and international opposition.
The Iraq Invasion in Retrospect
Opponents of the invasion have years later lamented that we could've done “anything” in the
wake of the 11th, but when Bush decided to use it to remove a long-term torn in the side of the US,
and the international order, many balked, despite the outpouring of sympathy. If so, then, it wasn't
about removing Saddam, but how.
No one, unfortunately, has ever explained to me how Bush could have done so sans international
outcry. I think was possible, but I'm the only one I'm aware of to toss out such a scenario. As it
was, Bush was very tone-deaf, but well-meaning, and operating on an internal time-table. In any
event, he should have listened more to other other international leaders, and shown concern for
their concerns, but did not.
I avidly followed the planning for war, in any event, reading about the day after, and the
administration's plans for it. I even read my mother The Savage Wars of Peace, by Max Boot,
recounting the “small war” history of the United States, and how we forgot our successes with them,
entering Vietnam. Unlike most, I don't think we would have had more success in Afghanistan had we
not only re-focused on Iraq, but it would have helped had we focused on counter-insurgency from the
get-go.
I had a lot of confidence in Bush's team, then, and the invasion itself was and act of brilliance, I must
say. In college, then, I was accosted by an anti-war activist, who called what we were doing
“colonialism.”
Me: “You know, colonialism has its advantages. Britain, you know, who's helping, is a product of
colonialism, hereself. She was once a part of the Roman Empire.”
Her: “The Romans reached Britain?”
You know, stupidity isn't completely confined to conservatives—right? For as much as Dubya went on
to seemingly confirm certain stereotypes, I've never forgotten that moment. Liberals may get better
press, but that doesn't mean they don't make gaffes—like lousy education.
As is, like so many other war proponents, I just couldn't fathom how badly Bush botched “the day
after,” or that they forces on the ground wouldn't execute the beginning of the post-war plan they'd
spent so long to construct.
Retrospection on the Iraq War, Itself...
Looking back, I still think the Iraq War could have worked, but for mismanagement like Abu Ghraib, but
beyond that, I now realize legitimacy matters much more than I understood, much more. I don't
believe what Zbigniew Brzezinski said, namely that Iraq was just neo-colonialism in a time that
wasn't tolerant of it, but that's because because things, on the other hand have worked pretty well,
in part, in Afghanistan, given a) we had more legitimacy, entering in 2001, compared to Iraq, in 2003,
and b) for all our failings, we manged to avoid undiermining our legitimacy to the degree we did in Iraq.
In any event, “neocolonialism,” or whatever call it, has has been good for Japan, and Germany; it's
also been good for South Korea, too. The verdict seems unclear for Afghanistan, but If her trajectory
stays the course, I expect the conclusion to be positive there, too. They know they need us, post-Karzai,
and that is positive.
Back in 2008, during Obama's anti-Bush backlash, I could empathize with much of the movement's
frustration with Bush, but I still couldn't help but feel like they were using a sledgehammer to crack a
nut. George Bush's style could be frustrating, but still, when I hear stuff where the Bush year's intervention
was “at the heart” of the foreign policy, I can't help but be annoyed. Dubya did more than that, like
like push for international treaties, but that shows just how badly Bush's critics were obsessed with
his failings, which largely led to Obama's greatest failing, down in Syria.
For my part, I feel grieved by him, but not angry. Even so, a lot of folks think Bush lied, and when
a rash of conservative politicians in 2014 defended the Iraq War, it not only made news, it made the
covers of Mad Magazine. I can say, Hey, Bush made some errors, but I can let it go—why can't
you?
All too many cannot, and it's bad for everyone; I can take responsibility for what limited role I had in
what happened, and feel no need to demand that somebody say, “I lied.” As I've made clear, there are
plenty of good reasons to support George Bush, and when I hear some writer from Salon.com call the invasion
“evil,” like I did last year, I can't help but take umbrage.
Don't call politicians “evil” lightly; I certainly don't. To that end I don't call Neville Chamberlain evil,
for as much as he enabled the evil that was Adolf Hitler. To that end I have also spared Barack
Obama it as well, despite all his neo-appeasement.
Such rhetoric raises the stakes, and I don't think you want to go there.
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