December 1, 2018
THE TRAGEDY OF GHWB IS THE CHARACTER OF THE NATION:
1991 Gulf War looms large over Bush's Mideast legacy: The events of Washington's first armed conflict with Saddam Hussein have helped shape the region's last three decades (HUSSAIN AL-QATARI and JON GAMBRELL, 12/01/18, AP)
On the outskirts of Kuwait City, the love Kuwaitis have for former US President George H.W. Bush could be seen in 2016 on a billboard one Bedouin family put up to announce their son's wedding.That son being Bush al-Widhan, born in the aftermath of the 1991 Gulf War that saw US-led forces expel the occupying Iraqi troops of dictator Saddam Hussein."He was a real man, a lion," said Mubarak al-Widhan, the father of the Kuwaiti Bush, of the American president. "He stood for our right for freedom, and he gave us back our country."With Bush's death Friday, his legacy across the Middle East takes root in that 100-hour ground war that routed Iraqi forces. That war gave birth to the network of military bases America now operates across the Persian Gulf supporting troops in Afghanistan and forces fighting against the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria.However, Bush ultimately would leave the Shiite and Kurdish insurgents he urged to rise up against Saddam in 1991 to face the dictator's wrath alone, leading to thousands of deaths.
America nearly always goes to war to vindicate the principals of the Founding:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. -- That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, -- That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
And we generally achieve the core goal of the war quite easily.
Unfortunately, we then seek to abandon the unwanted duty rather too quickly, often sowing the seeds for the next war or making the gains transitory.
Thus, we defeated the Confederacy, but allowed the South to segregate; won WWI for the Allies, but then failed to strip them of their colonies; crushed the Nazis and Japs, but left the Soviet Union in place; stopped North Korean aggression but left the regime in place; Vietnamized the war successfully, but then withdrew our support; drove Saddam out of Kuwait but failed to establish Kurd, Shi'a and democratic Sunni governance in a former Iraq; removed Saddam from power, but refused to allow the sorts of reprisals that de-Baathification required; and while we have routed ISIS without losing an American life, we continue to dodge our obligation to remove Assad.
Once is a mistake, two hundred years is just our reality. We can be rallied to war when our sensibilities are offended (the Crusader State of Walter McDougall's formulation), but we don't have much stomach for being the aggressor. And, because of the democratic nature of the state and the armed forces, the demand to bring the boys home always prevails (back to our Promised Land).
As a result, the End of History comes to everyone, just much more slowly than it might have with more steadfast help and with tragic results in the meantime.
(N.B. Arguably, the manner in which GHWB oversaw the end of the Cold War without bloodshed was a great achievement, though, even if true, that must be balanced against failing to push to topple the PRC during Tiananmen Square.)
Posted by Orrin Judd at December 1, 2018 8:04 AM