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.
