America's Quest for World Order, the Gulf Crisis, and the Making of the Post-Cold War Era 1990-1992

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

America's Quest for World Order, the Gulf Crisis, and the Making of the Post-Cold War Era 1990-1992 SCUOLA DOTTORALE IN SCIENZE POLITICHE SEZIONE DI STUDI EUROPEI E INTERNAZIONALI XIII CICLO “Who Can Harness History?” America's Quest for World Order, the Gulf Crisis, and the Making of the Post-Cold War Era 1990-1992 Diego Pagliarulo A.A. 2010/2011 Docente Guida/Tutor: Prof. Leopoldo Nuti Coordinatore: Prof. Leopoldo Nuti Abstract The purpose of this dissertation is to analyze the Gulf crisis of 1990-91 and its aftermath through the prism of how it served as a test and a defining moment for US foreign policy in the post-Cold War era, in terms of both how to articulate America's global leadership and how to understand the key challenges of contemporary international security. Based on extensive research on newly- available archival evidence from the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library, this piece of research examines how the policies taken by President George H.W. Bush and his national security staff in response to the challenges posed by Iraq's invasion of Kuwait led them to the development of a framework for American foreign policy in the post-Cold War era. The dissertation argues that the Bush Administration entered office in 1989 determined to articulate a national security strategy strictly consistent with the Cold War “containment” doctrine of confrontation with the Soviet Union, and that the US contribution to the Cold War endgame was strongly influenced by that conservative foreign policy outlook. Evidence suggests that, although they felt that the Gulf crisis was in fact the first crisis of a new era, Bush and his staff understood the challenge posed by Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait mainly through the prism of traditional and Cold War US national security doctrines, such as the Carter Doctrine and the assumption that no hostile power should achieve hegemony over a region of critical strategic and economic relevance to American interests. The acknowledgment that the preservation of an international system of multilateral cooperation led by the US would be a critical asset for a post-Cold War national security policy led the Bush Cabinet to articulate its strategy toward the Gulf crisis by appealing to universal principles of international cooperation and collective security, and in this effort to conceptualize a vision for a post-Cold War “new world order,” the President and his staff drew inspiration from past US efforts to organize the peace in the aftermath of major conflicts. The promotion of universal values, however, contrasted with the pursuit of some strategic goals considered vital by the White House to the achievement of a settlement in the Gulf favorable to American 2 national interests, especially the dismantlement of Iraq's unconventional arsenal and the neutralization of the threat to regional stability posed by Saddam Hussein's regime. The Bush Administration hoped to circumvent these crucial political and strategic dilemmas by adopting a military strategy that appeared to be capable of achieving the national goals in a way that made them justifiable as instrumental to the pursuit of the universally endorsed objectives of liberating Kuwait and minimize casualties. The US-led military campaign failed to create all the political outcomes the White House was hoping for, and eventually the President and his advisers resolved to content themselves of a limited but outstanding military success which boosted US global standing. The Bush Cabinet, however, was not prepared to foreswear its desire to achieve all the goals it had judged necessary to achieve a satisfying settlement of the conflict with Saddam's Iraq. Such an attitude forced the Administration to divert increasing political and diplomatic resources from the pursuit of other long term objectives which appeared within reach in the aftermath of the Gulf War, such as the achievement of a sustainable and cooperative regional order in the Gulf and the promotion of a settlement to other long-standing conflicts in the Middle east. This dissertation argues that such an over-ambitious attitude was the result of the combination between the Bush Administration's original conservative political outlook and its assessment of the implications of America's emerging status as the only remaining superpower. The dissertation finally notes that, despite its costs in terms of legitimacy of, and support for, US global leadership, the foreign policy template developed by the George H.W. Bush Administration turned out to be appealing in the view of subsequent American Presidents and national security teams as well, and represents one of the most relevant legacies of the Gulf War experience to the making of post-Cold Was US grand strategy. 3 Table of Contents Abstract ..................................................................................................................... 2 Aknowledgements .................................................................................................... 5 Introduction .............................................................................................................. 7 America and the Challenge of World Order ......................................................... 11 Main thesis and structure of the dissertation ........................................................ 25 Chapter 1 “Beyond Containment”: The Geroge H.W. Bush Administration and the Challenges of a Changing World ................................................................... 31 The evolution of the East-West confrontation in the late 1980s and its implications .......................................................................................................... 31 The Pause of 1989 and the dilemmas of American strategic planning ................ 37 American priorities after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the settlement of the German Question. ................................................................................................ 49 Catching a glimpse of the post-Cold War era ...................................................... 58 Chapter 2 World Order Under Threat: The “Defensive Option” ............................ 68 “The Guns of August” .......................................................................................... 68 “The Longest Week” ............................................................................................ 79 Implementing the “Defensive Option” ................................................................ 91 Chapter 3 The “Offensive Option” and the Struggle for Legitimacy ................... 106 Sanctions and their discontents .......................................................................... 106 A new diplomatic offensive and Resolution 678 ............................................... 115 The last political and diplomatic battles ............................................................ 126 Chapter 4 Desert Storm. Strategic Dilemmas, a “Big Idea,” and the “Fog of War” ................................................................................................................... 140 Strategic dilemmas: The problem of Kuwait and the problem of Saddam ........ 141 Instant Thunder: the politics of airpower ........................................................... 153 Desert Sabre: “100 Hours” to cut a Gordian Knot ............................................. 174 Chapter 5 “That IS the Bush View”: The Birth of the Post-Cold War era ............ 183 The Gulf War and the rise of a grand design for a new Middle East ................. 184 Waiting for the coup: the fate of Iraq and the fate of the Bush Administration’s grand design ....................................................................................................... 189 Chapter 6 The Challenges of the Post-Cold War World and the Legacies of the Gulf War Experience ......................................................................................... 217 Conclusions Power, and Opportunities ................................................................. 237 Maps ...................................................................................................................... 262 Bibliography ......................................................................................................... 266 4 Aknowledgements This dissertation – as arguably any piece of research – is in large part the product of the teaching and example of the many brilliant scholars I have had the privilege to work with; of the patience and helpfulness of the archivists, librarians, and administrative personnel I benefited from; and of the love and friendship of the many people who supported me. My supervisor at Roma Tre, prof. Leopoldo Nuti deserves special credit and all my gratitude for making me understand how important the study of history is to the understanding of the world we live in, for teaching me how to carry out rigorous research, and for giving me an opportunity to demonstrate my capabilities as a researcher. He has been a demanding but fair and helpful supervisor, and I hope to manage one day to demonstrate he has been right to believe in me. I also received precious support from Dr. Christian Ostermann and his staff at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. The Wilson Center is probably one of the best organized and most inspiring places in the world to carry out research, and the opportunity I was given to carry out a significant part of my work as a doctoral candidate there has definitely improved my research. At the Wilson Center I also had the good luck to meet David Ottaway. We
Recommended publications
  • The Regime Change Consensus: Iraq in American Politics, 1990-2003
    THE REGIME CHANGE CONSENSUS: IRAQ IN AMERICAN POLITICS, 1990-2003 Joseph Stieb A dissertation submitted to the faculty at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of History in the College of Arts and Sciences. Chapel Hill 2019 Approved by: Wayne Lee Michael Morgan Benjamin Waterhouse Daniel Bolger Hal Brands ©2019 Joseph David Stieb ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii ABSTRACT Joseph David Stieb: The Regime Change Consensus: Iraq in American Politics, 1990-2003 (Under the direction of Wayne Lee) This study examines the containment policy that the United States and its allies imposed on Iraq after the 1991 Gulf War and argues for a new understanding of why the United States invaded Iraq in 2003. At the core of this story is a political puzzle: Why did a largely successful policy that mostly stripped Iraq of its unconventional weapons lose support in American politics to the point that the policy itself became less effective? I argue that, within intellectual and policymaking circles, a claim steadily emerged that the only solution to the Iraqi threat was regime change and democratization. While this “regime change consensus” was not part of the original containment policy, a cohort of intellectuals and policymakers assembled political support for the idea that Saddam’s personality and the totalitarian nature of the Baathist regime made Iraq uniquely immune to “management” strategies like containment. The entrenchment of this consensus before 9/11 helps explain why so many politicians, policymakers, and intellectuals rejected containment after 9/11 and embraced regime change and invasion.
    [Show full text]
  • Introduction
    NOTES Introduction 1. Robert Kagan to George Packer. Cited in Packer’s The Assassin’s Gate: America In Iraq (Faber and Faber, London, 2006): 38. 2. Stefan Halper and Jonathan Clarke, America Alone: The Neoconservatives and the Global Order (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2004): 9. 3. Critiques of the war on terror and its origins include Gary Dorrien, Imperial Designs: Neoconservatism and the New Pax Americana (Routledge, New York and London, 2004); Francis Fukuyama, After the Neocons: America At the Crossroads (Profile Books, London, 2006); Ira Chernus, Monsters to Destroy: The Neoconservative War on Terror and Sin (Paradigm Publishers, Boulder, CO and London, 2006); and Jacob Heilbrunn, They Knew They Were Right: The Rise of the Neocons (Doubleday, New York, 2008). 4. A report of the PNAC, Rebuilding America’s Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century, September 2000: 76. URL: http:// www.newamericancentury.org/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf (15 January 2009). 5. On the first generation on Cold War neoconservatives, which has been covered far more extensively than the second, see Gary Dorrien, The Neoconservative Mind: Politics, Culture and the War of Ideology (Temple University Press, Philadelphia, 1993); Peter Steinfels, The Neoconservatives: The Men Who Are Changing America’s Politics (Simon and Schuster, New York, 1979); Murray Friedman, The Neoconservative Revolution: Jewish Intellectuals and the Shaping of Public Policy (Cambridge University Press, New York, 2005); Murray Friedman ed. Commentary in American Life (Temple University Press, Philadelphia, 2005); Mark Gerson, The Neoconservative Vision: From the Cold War to the Culture Wars (Madison Books, Lanham MD; New York; Oxford, 1997); and Maria Ryan, “Neoconservative Intellectuals and the Limitations of Governing: The Reagan Administration and the Demise of the Cold War,” Comparative American Studies, Vol.
    [Show full text]
  • European Journal of American Studies, 11-2 | 2016, « Summer 2016 » [En Ligne], Mis En Ligne Le 11 Août 2016, Consulté Le 08 Juillet 2021
    European journal of American studies 11-2 | 2016 Summer 2016 Édition électronique URL : https://journals.openedition.org/ejas/11535 DOI : 10.4000/ejas.11535 ISSN : 1991-9336 Éditeur European Association for American Studies Référence électronique European journal of American studies, 11-2 | 2016, « Summer 2016 » [En ligne], mis en ligne le 11 août 2016, consulté le 08 juillet 2021. URL : https://journals.openedition.org/ejas/11535 ; DOI : https:// doi.org/10.4000/ejas.11535 Ce document a été généré automatiquement le 8 juillet 2021. Creative Commons License 1 SOMMAIRE The Land of the Future: British Accounts of the USA at the Turn of the Nineteenth Century David Seed The Reader in It: Henry James’s “Desperate Plagiarism” Hivren Demir-Atay Contradictory Depictions of the New Woman: Reading Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence as a Dialogic Novel Sevinc Elaman-Garner “Nothing Can Touch You as Long as You Work”: Love and Work in Ernest Hemingway’s The Garden of Eden and For Whom the Bell Tolls Lauren Rule Maxwell People, Place and Politics: D’Arcy McNickle’s (Re)Valuing of Native American Principles John L. Purdy “Why Don’t You Just Say It as Simply as That?”: The Progression of Parrhesia in the Early Novels of Joseph Heller Peter Templeton “The Land That He Saw Looked Like a Paradise. It Was Not, He Knew”: Suburbia and the Maladjusted American Male in John Cheever’s Bullet Park Harriet Poppy Stilley The Writing of “Dreck”: Consumerism, Waste and Re-use in Donald Barthelme’s Snow White Rachele Dini The State You’re In: Citizenship, Sovereign
    [Show full text]
  • Thesis (281.2Kb)
    UNITED STATES POLICY TOWARDS ROGUE STATES A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Angelo State University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree MASTER OF SECURITY STUDIES by: ROBERT E. STILES May 2011 Major: Security Studies UNITED STATES POLICY TOWARDS ROGUE STATES By Robert Stiles APPROVED: Dr. Bruce E. Bechtol Dr. William Taylor Dr. Robert Nalbandov Dr. John Osterhaut July 16, 2012 APPROVED Dr. Brian May Dean of the College of Graduate Studies Table of Contents Table of Contents...........................................................................................................1 Abstract..........................................................................................................................2 Literature Review...........................................................................................................3 Introduction....................................................................................................................8 Chapter One: Iraq........................................................................................................10 Chapter Two: Iran.......................................................................................................43 Chapter Three: North Korea.......................................................................................80 Conclusions................................................................................................................110 Bibliography..............................................................................................................113
    [Show full text]
  • KASUSA Bücherliste Herbst-Winter
    lesenswertes BÜCHERLISTE HERBST/WINTER 2006 KONRAD ADENAUER FOUNDATION 2005 MASSACHUSETTS AVENUE, NW WASHINGTON, D.C. 20036 AUSSENPOLITIK The American Way of Strategy U.S. Foreign Policy and the American Way of Life Michael Lind, New America Foundation Oxford University Press, October 2006 In The American Way of Strategy, Lind argues that the goal of U.S. foreign policy has always been the preservation of the American way of life -- embodied in civilian government, checks and balances, a commercial economy, and individual freedom. Lind describes how successive American statesmen -- from George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Alexan- der Hamilton to Franklin Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, and Ronald Reagan -- have pur- sued an American way of strategy that minimizes the dangers of empire and anarchy by two means: liberal internationalism and realism. Hard Power The New Politics of National Security Kurt M. Campbell, CSIS and Michael E. O'Hanlon, Brookings Institution Basic Books, October 2006 In the past five years, national security has again become a political tool, a "wedge issue," a symbol of pride and fear. And yet the issue is often dominated by extremist ideology on one side and muted protest on the other – when what America desperately needs is a vigorous, intelligent two-party debate that will give rise to workable solutions. In this hard-hitting call to arms, two of the nation's top security experts show the way with a smart, tough approach and bold new ideas. Dangerous Nation: America's Place in the World from its Earliest Days to the Dawn of the 20th Century Robert Kagan, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Knopf, October 2006 From the author of the immensely influential and best-selling Of Paradise and Power comes a major reevaluation of America's place in the world from the colonial era to the turn of the twentieth century.
    [Show full text]
  • US Strategy and Global Order at the Dawn of the Post- Cold War
    8 The Scholar Choosing Primacy: U.S. Strategy and Global Order at the Dawn of the Post- Cold War Era Hal Brands Texas National Security Review: Volume 1, Issue 2 (March 2018) Print: ISSN 2576-1021 Online: ISSN 2576-1153 9 Newly declassified U.S. government records shed some light onto U.S. strategic thinking about the post-Cold War era and the infamous Defense Planning Guidance. In early 1992, the Pentagon’s primary policy office the document as a radical assertion of American — the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense hegemony — “literally a Pax Americana.”3 Patrick for Policy — prepared a draft classified document Buchanan, a prominent conservative pundit and known as the Defense Planning Guidance (DPG).1 In Republican presidential candidate, alleged that the late February and early March, that document was DPG represented “a formula for endless American leaked to the New York Times and the Washington intervention in quarrels and war when no vital Post, both of which published extensive excerpts. interest of the United States is remotely engaged.”4 Those excerpts, which highlighted the most striking More than a decade later, the episode still language and themes of the document, detailed a smoldered. Writing after the U.S.-led invasion of blueprint for American strategy in the post-Cold Iraq in 2003, journalist Craig Unger described the War era. The United States would not retrench DPG as the product “of a radical political movement dramatically now that its superpower rival had led by a right-wing intellectual vanguard.” Another been vanquished. Instead, it would maintain and assessment labeled the DPG a “disturbing” extend the unchallenged supremacy it had gained manifestation of a “Plan…for the United States to when the Soviet empire collapsed.
    [Show full text]
  • US Strategy and Global Order at the Dawn of the Post- Cold War
    8 The Scholar Choosing Primacy: U.S. Strategy and Global Order at the Dawn of the Post- Cold War Era Hal Brands Texas National Security Review: Volume 1, Issue 2 (March 2018) Print: ISSN 2576-1021 Online: ISSN 2576-1153 9 Newly declassified U.S. government records shed some light onto U.S. strategic thinking about the post-Cold War era and the infamous Defense Planning Guidance. In early 1992, the Pentagon’s primary policy office the document as a radical assertion of American — the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense hegemony — “literally a Pax Americana.”3 Patrick for Policy — prepared a draft classified document Buchanan, a prominent conservative pundit and known as the Defense Planning Guidance (DPG).1 In Republican presidential candidate, alleged that the late February and early March, that document was DPG represented “a formula for endless American leaked to the New York Times and the Washington intervention in quarrels and war when no vital Post, both of which published extensive excerpts. interest of the United States is remotely engaged.”4 Those excerpts, which highlighted the most striking More than a decade later, the episode still language and themes of the document, detailed a smoldered. Writing after the U.S.-led invasion of blueprint for American strategy in the post-Cold Iraq in 2003, journalist Craig Unger described the War era. The United States would not retrench DPG as the product “of a radical political movement dramatically now that its superpower rival had led by a right-wing intellectual vanguard.” Another been vanquished. Instead, it would maintain and assessment labeled the DPG a “disturbing” extend the unchallenged supremacy it had gained manifestation of a “Plan…for the United States to when the Soviet empire collapsed.
    [Show full text]
  • Prestige and American Empire, 1998-2003 by Tudor Onea a Thesis
    Soaring Eagle: Prestige and American Empire, 1998-2003 by Tudor Onea A thesis submitted to the Department of Political Studies in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Queen’s University Kingston, Ontario, Canada October 2009 Copyright© Tudor Onea, 2009 Abstract What are the causes of the US foreign policy of imperial expansion between 1998 and 2003? US foreign policy in this timeframe is distinctive by its unilateralism and use of force compared to previous instances of American expansion as well as to its political line in the early 1990s. Hence, the thesis conducts an inquiry into the reasons for this transformation in American foreign policy. By contrast to the existing literature on American foreign policy, the thesis argues for an alternative hypothesis in terms of prestige-seeking on the part of the US. Despite its advantage in capabilities, the US found itself constantly unable to translate its preferences into successful outcomes in the 1990s. This discrepancy eventually created the conditions for status inconsistency, i.e. the gap between the social ranks an actor occupies in multiple social hierarchies. An actor experiencing status inconsistency will attempt to balance ranks so as to achieve eventual superiority under all hierarchies. In world politics, prestige is a function of social ranking or status, which is itself conferred according to three dimensions: military capabilities, economic capabilities, and political performance—the ability of successfully translating one’s preferences into successful outcomes. It in this latter respect that the US felt it was particularly deficient in the aftermath of the Cold War, hence the need to conserve and enhance American prestige so as to match America’s pretensions of world leadership.
    [Show full text]
  • The Long Road to Baghdad: a History of U.S
    2009 h-diplo H-Diplo Roundtable Reviews www.h-net.org/~diplo/roundtables Volume X, No. 10 (2009) 15 April 2009 Lloyd C. Gardner. The Long Road to Baghdad: A History of U.S. Foreign Policy from the 1970s to the Present. New York: The New Press, Fall 2008. 320 pp. ISBN: 978-1-59558-075-7 ($27.95; hardcover). Roundtable Editor: Thomas Maddux Reviewers: James Goldgeier, Joan Hoff, Nancy Mitchell Stable URL: http://www.h-net.org/~diplo/roundtables/PDF/Roundtable-X-10.pdf Contents Introduction by Thomas Maddux, California State University, Northridge.............................. 2 Review by James Goldgeier, George Washington University and Council on Foreign Relations6 Review by Joan Hoff, Montana State University, Bozeman ..................................................... 8 Review by Nancy Mitchell, North Carolina State University .................................................. 12 Author’s Response by Lloyd Gardner, Rutgers University ...................................................... 15 Copyright © 2009 H-Net: Humanities and Social Sciences Online. H-Net permits the redistribution and reprinting of this work for non-profit, educational purposes, with full and accurate attribution to the author(s), web location, date of publication, H-Diplo, and H-Net: Humanities & Social Sciences Online. For other uses, contact the H-Diplo editorial staff at h-diplo@h-net.msu.edu. H-Diplo Roundtable Reviews, Vol. X, No. 10 (2009) Introduction by Thomas Maddux, California State University, Northridge ince the 1960s Lloyd Gardner has contributed a steady stream of influential studies that have focused on 20th century U.S. diplomacy and leaders from Woodrow Wilson S to George W. Bush. As a member of the University of Wisconsin school of revisionists with Walter LaFeber and Thomas J.
    [Show full text]
  • Fueling the Fire Jeff D. Colgan Pathways from Oil to War
    Fueling the Fire Fueling the Fire Jeff D. Colgan Pathways from Oil to War What roles do oil and energy play in international conºict? In public debates, the issue often pro- vokes signiªcant controversy. Critics of the two U.S.-led wars against Iraq (in 1991 and 2003) charged that they traded “blood for oil,” and that they formed a part of an American neo-imperialist agenda to control oil in the Middle East. The U.S. government, on the other hand, explicitly denied that the wars were about oil, especially in 2003. U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld ar- gued that the war “has nothing to do with oil, literally nothing to do with oil,” a theme echoed by White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer.1 Political scientists have had remarkably little to say on the issue. Realist analyses of the causes of war, even those that speciªcally highlight the ability of states to acquire or extract resources, tend to say very little about oil and en- ergy.2 Among the few scholars who do focus on the issue, there is little agree- ment. Some argue that “resource wars” are frequent and that oil plays a major causal role.3 Others cast doubt on the importance of such wars, pointing to the lack of systematic evidence.4 Policy analysts tend to focus narrowly on “en- Jeff D. Colgan is Assistant Professor in the School of International Service at American University and au- thor of Petro-Aggression: When Oil Causes War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013). The author wishes to thank Boaz Atzili, Ken Conca, Alexander Downes, Charles Glaser, Llewelyn Hughes, Miles Kahler, Rose Kelanic, Elizabeth Saunders, and Caitlin Talmadge; seminar/panel participants at George Washington University and the 2012 annual meeting of the International Studies Association; and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this article.
    [Show full text]
  • Why the Bush Administration Invaded Iraq: Making Strategy After 9/11
    Why the BushAdministration Invaded Iraq Making Strategy after 9/11 Jeffrey Record The conviction that Saddam Hussein was an imminent threat to America and therefore necessitated removal by force began as a kind of communicable agent to which some in the administration had great resistance and others not. Its host bodies belonged to, among others, Vice President Dick Cheney; his chief of staff, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby; Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz; and Douglas J. Feith, undersecretary of defense for policy. The agent resided in these four men, and in lesser hosts, well before September 11. But after the attack on America, the contagion swept through the Beltway and insinuated itself into the minds of many—including the White House national security adviser and the president of the United States. —Robert Draper Dead Certain: The Presidency of George W. Bush The United States is headed into the sixth year of an exceptionally frus­ trating war whose consequences so far have been largely injurious to Ameri­ ca’s long-term national security. Preoccupation with that war understandably has obscured the original decision for launching it. That decision cannot be repealed, and the controversies surrounding it offer little guidance to those grappling with the political and military challenges confronting the United States in Iraq today. Knowing the way into Iraq is not knowing the way out. That said, it is critical that Americans come to understand how the United States came to invade and occupy Iraq, if for no other reason than to inform future discussion of whether, when, and how to employ US military power.
    [Show full text]
  • Why the Bush Administration Invaded Iraq: Making Strategy After 9/11
    Why the BushAdministration Invaded Iraq Making Strategy after 9/11 Jeffrey Record The conviction that Saddam Hussein was an imminent threat to America and therefore necessitated removal by force began as a kind of communicable agent to which some in the administration had great resistance and others not. Its host bodies belonged to, among others, Vice President Dick Cheney; his chief of staff, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby; Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz; and Douglas J. Feith, undersecretary of defense for policy. The agent resided in these four men, and in lesser hosts, well before September 11. But after the attack on America, the contagion swept through the Beltway and insinuated itself into the minds of many—including the White House national security adviser and the president of the United States. —Robert Draper Dead Certain: The Presidency of George W. Bush The United States is headed into the sixth year of an exceptionally frus­ trating war whose consequences so far have been largely injurious to Ameri­ ca’s long-term national security. Preoccupation with that war understandably has obscured the original decision for launching it. That decision cannot be repealed, and the controversies surrounding it offer little guidance to those grappling with the political and military challenges confronting the United States in Iraq today. Knowing the way into Iraq is not knowing the way out. That said, it is critical that Americans come to understand how the United States came to invade and occupy Iraq, if for no other reason than to inform future discussion of whether, when, and how to employ US military power.
    [Show full text]