Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, January 16, 1992 TAG: 9201160389
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
THE GULF WAR, A YEAR LATER
CAN IT BE a whole year has elapsed since that day the bombs began raining down on Iraq?In the inevitable drawing up of balance sheets, President Bush's handling of the war is being measured, in some respects, unfairly. With the rosy glow of his triumph faded, the U.S. economy soured, and Saddam Hussein still thumbing his nose at us, the inclination of many is to ask (if they care to think about it at all): So what happened to that brilliant victory?
This is to misplace the problem. It isn't that the euphoria of winning proved short-lived, or that victory was less than it seemed, or that we didn't proceed to Baghdad and kill Saddam, that ought to nag us a year later. The tragedy is that the war was fought at all, when a peaceful precedent for a better world remained a possibility.
Americans today can look back at Bush's war perhaps in a better light, now that the marching of parading troops and the voices equating doubts with dearth of patriotism have quieted. (We call it Bush's war because the executive, following unfortunate precedent, repudiated the constitutional requirement that Congress declare wars.)
Let's be fair to Bush. The spectacle of some who opposed the war now saying it wasn't carried far enough is, to say the least, unseemly. The president's popularity had to decline, given unsustainable 90 percent approval ratings last March. The ends of wars tend to be messy affairs (sorry about that, Kurds), and a stubborn recession can hardly be blamed on Bush's resort to force last Jan. 16.
Indeed, the warrior-president fared considerably better than many pessimists at the time predicted. America was not bogged down in a long, Vietnam-like conflict. Our sons and daughters did not suffer heavy casualties. The international coalition opposing Saddam did not break up. Environmental damage did not produce the equivalent of a "nuclear winter." The Arab world did not explode in a firestorm of anti-Americanism.
And the war did accomplish its mission. Contrary to latter-day revisionists, the objective was neither to restore democracy in a nation (Kuwait) that had never enjoyed it, nor to overturn a government (Iraq's) that remains repugnant still.
The mission was to pry Saddam's soldiers from the state they had invaded. In the shortest war in American history, this goal was achieved.
Also on the balance sheet's plus side are gains more or less attributable to the international action impressively organized and led by the Bush administration. Access to oil, at cheap prices and without the threat of Iraqi extortion, was secured - a global benefit.
As important, the gulf victory, combined with the collapse of communism, left America the region's unchallenged superpower. Several states, including Syria, have since concluded that improved relations with America serve their interests. (Iran's recognition of this led to the release of hostages.)
To be sure, Middle East peace talks appear at the moment to be going nowhere; still, the significance of bringing Arab and Israeli adversaries to the bargaining table shouldn't be underestimated. The landscape of this ancient conflict has changed, thanks to the Bush administration's diplomatic efforts - aided, it must be said, by the political aftershocks of the Gulf War.
With all this on the positive side of the ledger, it may seem odd that Americans retain so little of the afterglow of victory, notwithstanding Saddam's treatment of 800,000 homeless Kurds, his concealment of nuclear materials and chemical weapons, and his unrepentant survival.
With this war, we were supposed to have kicked, finally, the Vietnam Syndrome, supposed to have emerged into the New World Order newly confident of our power and purpose.
In fact, ambivalence about Desert Storm is well-founded on the grounds of lost opportunity - if we have in view the chance to diminish the power not just of a ruthless potentate, but of a resilient principle.
The principle left intact by the Gulf War - indeed, reinforced by the success of its ferocious prosecution - is that the side able to marshal greater military force prevails. Thus, instead of arms reduction in the Mideast and elsewhere, we see nations still scrambling to increase their arsenals and, in some cases, to develop nuclear weapons.
With the Soviet Union out of the picture, America can - with its military might - cut down Third World dictators practically at will. But is this the New World Order proclaimed by Bush? Or was Harvard professor Samuel Huntington closer to the mark in foreseeing "a more jungle-like world of multiple dangers, hidden traps, unpleasant surprises and moral ambiguities" to replace the bipolar certainties of the Cold War era?
With recession upon us, Americans should be acutely aware that economic advantage, more than force of arms, is the crucial crucible for success in the new global order. Yet a year ago, the opportunity to persevere with economic isolation and sanctions - which already were working and had robbed Saddam of any gain from his aggression - was trampled in the rush to war.
It was an error not just of strategic calculation, but also of national conscience, mitigated perhaps but not redeemed by the war's swift and welcome outcome. America's rosy afterglow was painted with the blood of untold tens of thousands of Iraqis.
A year later, let us not celebrate war. Let us work for a world in which this horror has no place.