Operation Desert Storm, which began 25 years ago this week, was, using the words of Teddy Roosevelt’s secretary of state, “a splendid little war.” Indeed it was if one’s criteria are success, strategic purpose and political achievement. Putting the policy aside for a moment — and after all, protecting the region’s oil had been U.S. policy since Franklin Roosevelt met with Saudi Arabia’s King Abdul Aziz — President George H.W. Bush achieved everything he set out to accomplish.
Tactically, he fulfilled the United Nations mandate by removing Saddam Hussein’s army from Kuwait; operationally he significantly reduced Saddam’s military power; and strategically he restored the balance of power in the Persian Gulf and protected the world’s unfettered access to the region’s oil. Not bad considering it cost the U.S. fewer than 150 killed-in-action and other countries paid 99 percent of the war’s monetary costs.
Fast-forward to 2003 and Bush-the-son, for in many ways the first Gulf War set up the second. First, the U.S. presidential dynasty for the second war was the same, Bush. Second, the specter of Saddam Hussein’s trying to arrange the assassination of Bush-père shadowed the son. Third, Bush’s vice president, Dick Cheney, had been the father’s secretary of defense. Fourth, Colin Powell, Bush’s secretary of state, had been his principal military adviser and, more remembered, the man who said on national television: “First we’re going to cut it off, and then we’re going to kill it,” referring to the Iraqi Army then occupying Kuwait and forever embedding himself in the minds of most Americans as the quintessential American warrior.
Then how did things go so wrong for the second act? There was no success at all, not even in removing Saddam Hussein from power, as that removal sundered Iraq. The operational goal was not achieved because there were no weapons of mass destruction (WMD). There was no strategic or political success because the war destroyed the balance of power in the Persian Gulf, left billions of barrels of Iraqi oil subject to immense turmoil and conflict, and put an otherwise isolated Iran in the regional cat-bird’s seat. Moreover, the huge cost of the war increased U.S. debt enormously.
Everything went wrong, basically, because unlike the first war, the timing was truly bad (Afghanistan had not been wrapped up yet), the war had few real international supporters other than Britain and, above all, the war aided and abetted America’s enemies from one end of southwest Asia to the other. It also put Israel’s long-term security in jeopardy.
Some argue today that all of this turmoil was inevitable anyway, that U.S. policies supporting dictatorial regimes in exchange for oil were doomed in any event, and that the first Gulf War only prolonged stability at the price of ideological purity and sound long-term strategy. This is particularly the view of U.S. neo-conservatives who wholeheartedly supported the second war and who now feel strongly that all that remains to fulfill a dramatic and requisite shift in U.S. strategy is to take out Iran. Their propagandistic approach to this latter task closely resembles their previous 2002-03 effort with respect to Iraq.
Others, including most historians, see the first war as necessary and successful, militarily of course but also politically and geostrategically. They see the second as unmitigated disaster, perhaps even more so than the debacle of the U.S. war in Vietnam. Israel’s security has not been in such doubt since 1948 — and Iran and its nuclear potential are not the reason.
An entire region in turmoil is. Five million-plus refugees, the stability of Lebanon and Jordan in question, an irrationally bellicose government in Tel Aviv, Egypt a question and Syria embroiled in what seems an endless civil war that produces groups such as the al-Nusrah Front and the Islamic State, only spearhead the turmoil.
Saudi Arabia’s latest efforts in Yemen reveal a new regime in Riyadh that has no idea which way the wind is blowing with regard to its tenure in power. It lashes out with fresh vigor to arrest the dangers it only dimly comprehends. From Islamabad to Sana’a, from Baghdad to Beirut, instability is so widespread it now threatens world peace.
One bright spot remains, however: The recently-concluded agreement among the U.N. Permanent Five nations, plus Germany and Iran. This agreement, presently dealing with only Iran’s nuclear program but with much wider implications, has the potential to be the foundation for a new start in the region. It could provide a key to restoring regional stability.
And over the next month and a half certain members of the U.S. Congress will threaten that agreement, as they are doing now, mostly because of politics.
The nation’s security policy should rise above such idiocy. Let’s see if it does.
Lawrence Wilkerson served 31 years in the US Army. He was chief of staff to secretary of state Colin Powell from 2002-2005. He currently teaches government and public policy at the College of William and Mary. Thinking of submitting an op-ed to the Washington Examiner? Be sure to read our guidelines on submissions.
