Who Can Really Say?

Having it Both Ways

Tom Friedman yearns today for the good old days and the good old Bush.

The alliance that Mr. Bush, Brent Scowcroft and James A. Baker III built to drive Saddam out of Kuwait had so many allies it virtually turned a profit for America. Mr. Bush chose not to invade Baghdad in 1991. Right or wrong, he felt that had he tried, he would have lost the coalition he had built up to evict Saddam from Kuwait.

These sentences perfectly capture the "damned if you do and damned if you don't" reviews of Gulf War I. International coalition? Good. Didn't oust Saddam? Bad. Couldn't have had one without the other? Don't bother me with trivialities, son, I'm on a roll.

Friedman recounts this bit of recent history to compare and contrast it with current times. Bush 43, of course, had no coalition. Well, that's not true -- he had a coalition, just not the right one -- which is to say he didn't have a coalition backed by firm, no nonsense UN Resolutions^TM, even though such resolutions were not forthcoming regardless of who held the White House, and even though there's no reason to think they'd actually make a difference anyway. (See what I mean by damned if you do and damned if you don't?)

Friedman ignores changed conditions when compairing the fall/winter of 1990-1991 and the same period 13 years later. He ignores thirteen years of European military influence on the wane; thirteen years of increasing separation of Europe from the foreign policy goals and values of the US; thirteen years of most European countries distancing themselves from Israel's life and death struggle with Palestinian terrorists. Folks love to throw "squandered" good will in Bush's face, but the truth of that will is that it was never as good as advertised, and when put to the test was found wanting.

The critics of Bush 41 got it both ways. They got their coalition and it handcuffed us enough so that post Gulf War I Iraq became an open sore that was all our fault because Saddam was left in power. Today, they bitch and moan about Bush 43's lack of diplomatic skill in putting together a coalition, even though it was the presence of such a coalition years earlier that directly placed us in the position we're in today.

Don't get me wrong -- I wasn't against the efforts of Bush 41 to build as broad an alliance as he could. But if nothing else that experience proved broad alliances are imperfect at best, and that alliances composed of actual allies are probably best of all.

And then there's this choice nugget:

He [Bush 41] obviously believed that the U.S. should never invade an Arab capital without a coalition that contained countries whose support mattered in that part of the world, such as France, Egypt, Syria or Saudi Arabia.

You'll have to pardon my francaise here, but if Gulf War I proved anything it's that we need alliances with Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia and yes, France, like we need oh -- I don't know -- hijacked passenger jets flying into buildings?

Posted by Peter at October 31, 2004 07:20 AM