You Say You Want a Coalition?

Summary

Podcast Summary: History As It Happens

Episode: “You Say You Want a Coalition?”
Date: March 17, 2026
Host: Martin Di Caro
Guest: Jeffrey Engel, historian and director of the Center for Presidential History at Southern Methodist University

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Overview:

This episode critically examines the formation of the U.S.-led coalition during the First Gulf War in 1990-91, contrasting it with America’s more recent, unilateral war approach against Iran. Host Martin Di Caro and historian Jeffrey Engel dig into the diplomatic, historical, and geopolitical contexts that shaped America’s Middle Eastern entanglements. They discuss how the lessons (and failures) of past wars, especially Vietnam and the Gulf War, influence U.S. policy and public opinion on contemporary conflicts.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. American Military Presence in the Middle East (Pre-Gulf War)

• [14:35–18:58]
  • The U.S. had a limited military footprint in the region, mainly a single base in Bahrain. The idea of large-scale involvement was unthinkable prior to 1990.
  • Jeffrey Engel: “The Gulf War, 1990-91, is when the United States became a Middle Eastern state... After 1990, 91, the United States is a de facto Gulf state.” (18:36)
  • The Cold War heavily shaped America's regional interests, primarily centered on oil and global economic stability.

2. Carter Doctrine and the Shift in U.S. Foreign Policy

• [15:04–17:05]
  • In 1980, President Carter articulated the U.S. willingness to defend Persian Gulf interests by any means necessary, including force.
  • Archival Clip (Carter Doctrine): “Any attempt by outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America. And such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force.” (15:58)

3. Iraq-Iran War: The Prequel

• [19:12–21:46]
  • U.S. policy saw Iraq, led by Saddam Hussein, as a regional bulwark against revolutionary Iran.
  • Saddam believed his costly war with Iran earned him regional and international deference, and that the Gulf owed him for staving off Iranian influence.
  • U.S. support for both Iran’s opposition and for Iraq during the 1980s infected later perceptions and alliances.

4. Saddam Hussein’s Invasion of Kuwait: Misjudgments and Motivations

• [21:53–27:43]
  • Saddam, needing resources after the Iraq-Iran War, claimed Kuwait was stealing oil and keeping prices high. His invasion was driven by desperate economic needs and a belief others would not respond forcefully.
  • The U.S. and others consistently underestimated Saddam’s willingness to invade, partly because he had previously “bluffed” with military posturing.
  • Engel: “Everyone...thought Saddam Hussein was bluffing...We usually don’t anticipate our enemies doing dumb things.” (25:33)

5. Diplomatic Signals and the April Glaspie Controversy

• [26:19–28:43]
  • U.S. Ambassador April Glaspie’s remarks to Saddam—asserting neutrality on border disputes but emphasizing peaceful resolution—were later mischaracterized as giving a “green light.”
  • Engel: “She did her job just right...[the claim she gave a green light] is not what happened.” (27:39-27:47)

6. Bush Administration Response: From Indifference to Coalition-Building

• [28:48–31:59]
  • Initial White House reactions to the invasion were pragmatic and even apathetic; priority concern was German reunification, not Middle Eastern sovereignty.
  • Engel: “The first reaction...is meh, this is not great, but do we really care that much?” (30:48)
  • Strategic calculation shifted toward building an international order post-Cold War and deterring future aggression.
  • Engel: “If the first thing that happens in the post-Cold War order is an invasion that is allowed to stand, won’t that tell every other tin pot dictator that they too can use aggression?” (31:59)

7. Reluctance and Calculation—The Saudi and Global Response

• [33:32–35:18]
  • Saudi Arabia reluctantly allowed U.S. troops on its soil, balancing defense needs with sensitivities about foreign (non-Muslim) soldiers in the kingdom.
  • Osama bin Laden’s opposition to this U.S. presence would later fuel anti-American terrorism, including 9/11.

8. Vietnam Syndrome and the Powell Doctrine

• [35:18–38:59]
  • Public and elite memory of Vietnam made leaders wary of a new quagmire; Bush publicly vowed “this will not be another Vietnam.” (38:18)
  • The Powell Doctrine emphasized overwhelming force, limited objectives, and an exit strategy—no regime change, just expelling Iraqi forces from Kuwait.
  • Engel: “The very first war plan...was terrible and by all accounts, intentionally terrible...so [Bush] would realize going to war...was potentially going to open up another Vietnam quagmire.” (41:11)

9. International Coalition and Domestic Debate

• [41:06–44:19, 49:09–50:16]
  • Coalition-building involved intense and skillful diplomacy, with Bush and James Baker securing buy-in from key global players, including Russia and China.
  • Congressional opposition warned against repeating Vietnam and sacrificing American lives for oil.
  • Notable Quote (Bernie Sanders): “Some causes are worth fighting for. This cause is not worth fighting for right now.” (49:59)
  • Yet, once victory was quick and seemingly decisive, opponents were seen as being on the “wrong side of history.”

10. Aftermath: Unintended Consequences and Long-Term Entanglement

• [46:57–48:35, 51:21–52:38]
  • Despite not marching to Baghdad, the U.S. remained entangled: enforcing no-fly zones and sanctions throughout the 1990s, which led to humanitarian crises and further conflict.
  • Archival Clip (Dick Cheney, postwar): “Once you got to Iraq and took it over...then what are you going to put in its place? ...It’s a quagmire.” (47:37)
  • The victory led to “overconfidence” in U.S. military and air power for subsequent conflicts.
  • Engel: “An element of that...is we have demonstrated...that we are not one generation ahead of everybody else...but three generations ahead...the overwhelming majority...of munitions fired in the air war against Iran today.” (50:32)

11. Echoes in Contemporary Policy: Trump, Unilateralism, and Permanent War

• [53:14–53:33]
  • The episode contrasts Bush Sr.'s emphasis on coalitions and legality with Trump's go-it-alone mentality regarding war with Iran.
  • Engel: “Trump says, why should I spend a year building a coalition when I can do what I want?” (53:33)
  • The current crisis shows how far U.S. foreign policy has drifted from the coalition model of 1991.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Engel on U.S. transformation:
  “...the Gulf War, 1990, 91, is when the United States became a Middle Eastern state.” (18:36)

• On coalition necessity:
  “You need a coalition. And he also needed a coalition at home...” (41:11)

• Bush’s line:
  “This will not stand, this aggression against Kuwait.” (40:47)

• On war planning:
  “The Pentagon had shipped 50,000 body bags to the Middle East for the 500,000 troops...” (42:48)

• On the perpetual cycle of intervention:
  “The Middle East is no less important...Now we are, as I mentioned earlier, a Gulf War state.” (51:55)

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Key Timestamps for Important Segments

• [02:05] — Framing: Gulf War as origin of “forever wars” in the Middle East
• [15:04–17:05] — Carter Doctrine and oil’s security role
• [19:12–21:46] — Iraq-Iran War’s aftermath shapes regional calculus
• [25:33] — Why Saddam’s intentions were misunderstood
• [27:39] — Clarifying the April Glaspie “green light” myth
• [30:48–31:59] — Initial Bush admin indifference and pivot
• [35:18–38:59] — The shadow of Vietnam; emergence of the Powell Doctrine
• [41:06–44:03] — Intensive global coalition-building
• [49:09–50:16] — Congressional opposition to war
• [46:57–48:35] — Why the U.S. stopped short of Baghdad
• [51:21–52:38] — The legacy: entanglement and new challenges
• [53:14–53:33] — Juxtaposing Bush Sr.'s multilateralism with Trump’s unilateralism

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Tone and Style

The conversation is analytical yet accessible, blending Engel’s academic rigor with Di Caro’s journalistic clarity. Throughout, both speakers express skepticism about triumphalist views, urging listeners to reconsider the inevitability and righteousness of U.S. interventions, and to pay attention to the often-overlooked consequences of war.

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Conclusion

This episode compellingly retraces the path from the Gulf War’s carefully assembled coalition and legal justifications to the current era’s quick resort to force, often bypassing debate and international consensus. It illuminates the “forever war” logic—how history, precedent, and hard-fought lessons are sometimes heeded but often ignored in the rush to solve new crises with old tools.

Transcript

[Jeffrey Engel]

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[Martin DeCaro]

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[Historical Figures / Archival Clips]

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[Jeffrey Engel]

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[Jeffrey Engel]

Iraq's President Saddam Hussein warned that he

[Historical Figures / Archival Clips]

would turn Kuwait into a graveyard if any foreign country tried to intervene. A new world order can emerge. A new era freer from the threat of terror, stronger in the pursuit of justice, and more secure in the quest for peace. We stand on the brink of catastrop. I urge my colleagues to vote against authorizing an immediate war. In a last ditch effort, the Secretary General of the United nations went to the Middle east with peace in his heart, was required under our Constitution to seek the approval of the Congress before he was able to use force and as President I can report to the nation aggression is defeated. The war is over.

[Martin DeCaro]

35 years ago, the United States led a large international coalition in war against Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Both the United nations and the US Congress gave their consent. What appeared to be a decisive victory was achieved. But what we now call the first Gulf War turned out to be the opening chapter in America's forever wars in the Greater Middle east after the initial euphoria of kicking the Vietnam Syndrome faded. Just something to consider as the US Wages a new war against Iran with no debates, no public consent, and no exit strategy. That is next as we report history as it happens. I'm Martin DeCaro.

[Jeffrey Engel]

For 47 years, the Iranian regime has

[Historical Figures / Archival Clips]

chanted death to America and waged an unending campaign of bloodshed and mass murder

[Jeffrey Engel]

targeting the United States, our troops, and the innocent people in many, many countries. The Cold War has ending Therefore, we are right now writing the rules of the road for the international system, for the post Cold war order. And if the first thing that happens in the post Cold War order is an invasion that is allowed to stand, won't that tell every other tin pot dictator that they too can use aggression?

[Historical Figures / Archival Clips]

The day of the dictator is over.

[Martin DeCaro]

A little more than two weeks ago, Americans woke up to learn their president had videotaped an announcement and released it in the middle of the night. The country was at war against Iran. Our objective is to defend the American

[Jeffrey Engel]

people by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime.

[Martin DeCaro]

Now, it wasn't entirely a surprise. The Pentagon had already positioned a large naval and air force in the Persian Gulf area. Negotiations to force Iran to surrender its nuclear program were ongoing. But President Trump said he wasn't happy with them. And we also have to remember the US And Israel had bombed Iran just last summer. What was truly astounding was the way Trump flung the country into war, pressured by Israel and not seeking authorization from Congress or the UN Without a peep of debate. Polls showed the public opposed to launching another war in the Middle east. But Trump did not care. Now compare this situation to what transpired 35 years ago after Saddam Hussein's Iraq invaded and brutalized its neighbor Kuwait. A systematic campaign of pillage, rape, torture and murder, and the theft of Kuwait's economic assets.

[Historical Figures / Archival Clips]

Invasion by a hundred thousand Iraqi troops, backed by air cover and tanks, was brutally efficient. Iraq wants control of Kuwait's territory, its oil and the money that comes with it. Iraq insists that it was invited in by a rebel Kuwaiti government, but no one believes that.

[Martin DeCaro]

Just four days later, August 6, 1990, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 661, which banned all trade with Iraq. A day later, the first U.S. troops were sent to Saudi Arabia as a defensive measure.

[Historical Figures / Archival Clips]

We view it as a matter of grave concern to this country and internationally as well. What Iraq has done violates every norm of international law. And I've been meeting this morning with my top.

[Martin DeCaro]

The Bush administration's national security team was at first unsure what to do. The invasion was terrible, everyone agreed. But so what if there's an Iraqi flag rather than a Kuwaiti flag on a barrel of oil? Unlike today, when US Military power blankets the Middle east, back then there was only one US Military installation in the region, in Bahrain. Americans had never fought a major war there, and past decisions to intervene in places like Lebanon had ended in humiliating violence.

[Historical Figures / Archival Clips]

The government of Lebanon has requested and I have approved the the deployment of United States forces to Beirut as part of a multinational force.

[Martin DeCaro]

So by 1990, there was vehement opposition in Congress to going to war. Even with much of the Arab world and the broader international community agreeing to use force to expel Saddam from Kuwait, Congressional Democrats argued for patience, to rely on sanctions to squeeze Saddam and to invest more heavily in diplomacy.

[Historical Figures / Archival Clips]

We stand on the brink of catastrophe if we allow domestic politics, self imposed deadlines or military logistics to rush us into a war that no one wants and a war that even in victory, will so severely damage our national interests. Mr. Speaker, despite the fact that virtually the entire world has been united against Saddam Hussein, a two bit vicious dictator who illegally and brutally invaded Kuwait, the President concluded that there was no way of resolving this conflict and achieving our goals other than waging a massive war, perhaps unprecedented in the history of the world in terms of the death and destruction wrought in its first day as a result of our aerial attacks.

[Martin DeCaro]

That was Paul Wellstone in the Senate, followed by Bernie Sanders in the House. A month into Iraq's occupation of Kuwait, President Bush addressed a joint session of Congress where he explained why Saddam's aggression could not stand. It was now an opportunity to write the rules of a new world order, not just some minor war in a small country that could be ignored.

[Historical Figures / Archival Clips]

And we stand today at a unique and extraordinary moment. The crisis in the Persian Gulf, as grave as it is, also offers a rare opportunity to move toward an historic period of cooperation. Out of these troubled times, our fifth objective, a new World Order, can emerge. A new era freer from the threat of terror, stronger in the pursuit of justice, and more secure in the quest for peace. An era in which the nations of the world, east and west, north and south, can prosper and live in harmony. A hundred generations have searched for this elusive path to peace while a thousand wars raged across the span of human endeavor. And today, that new world is struggling to be born.

[Martin DeCaro]

In early January 1991, Secretary of State James Baker visited Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz in what was considered the last chance to convince Saddam to relent concerning

[Historical Figures / Archival Clips]

the new world order or the international world order.

[Martin DeCaro]

By this time, about a half million US Forces were in the Gulf. The United Kingdom had sent more than 25,000 Egypt, 20,000, France, 5,500. Some 25 other countries had committed troops and weapons to Operation Desert Shield. By the time of the Baker aziz meeting, the UN Security Council had passed Resolution 678. The vote was 12 to 2, sanctioning the use of force if Iraq had not evacuated Kuwait by January 15, 1991. Aziz would not budge.

[Historical Figures / Archival Clips]

As far as the Iraqi people are concerned, as far as the Iraqi leadership

[Jeffrey Engel]

are concerned, we are preparing ourselves and

[Historical Figures / Archival Clips]

we have been preparing ourselves from the very beginning to the worst kind of expectations.

[Martin DeCaro]

On January 12, Congress voted to authorize the use of force. The House passed it 250 to 183, the Senate 52 to 47. The bombing started three days later.

[Historical Figures / Archival Clips]

This military action taken in accord with United nations resolutions and with the consent of the United States Congress follows months of constant and virtually endless diplomatic activity on the part of the United nations, the United States and many, many other countries. Arab leaders sought what became known as an Arab solution, only to conclude that Saddam Hussein was unwilling to leave Kuwait.

[Martin DeCaro]

In February 1991, the ground war began. It lasted 100 hours. Iraq's military was routed, but not entirely destroyed. And Bush decided not to drive all the way to Baghdad to avoid a quagmire. The stated mission was accomplished. The Powell doctrine had succeeded.

[Historical Figures / Archival Clips]

Our strategy to go after this army is very, very simple.

[Jeffrey Engel]

First we're going to cut it off

[Historical Figures / Archival Clips]

and then we're going to kill it.

[Martin DeCaro]

After months of decision, diplomacy, preparation and domestic and international debate, Desert Storm success

[Historical Figures / Archival Clips]

belongs to the team that so ably leads our armed forces, our Secretary of Defense and our Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Dick Cheney and Colin Powell.

[Martin DeCaro]

But in this resounding victory, the US did not extract itself from Iraq. Instead, it wound up enforcing no fly zones in the north and south of the country to protect Kurdish and Shia populations who had risen up after the short war ended only to be crushed by Saddam. Sanctions flattened Iraq's economy, leading to thousands of civilian deaths over the 1990s.

[Historical Figures / Archival Clips]

It's hurting people, it's leading to deaths, it's leading to bitter sufferings. We have heard that a half a million children have died. I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima. You know, Is the price worth it? I think this is a very hard choice, but the price, we think the price is worth it.

[Martin DeCaro]

Andy Rock was subjected to United nations weapons inspections until Hussein kicked the inspectors out in 1998. Also during this time, Congress codified the policy of regime change in Iraq. When that finally happened in 2003, the euphoria was short lived.

[Historical Figures / Archival Clips]

And they will welcome as liberators the United States.

[Martin DeCaro]

The mission was not accomplished. Quagmire ensued. And today, a quarter century after 9 11, the US is still fighting unnecessary wars in the greater Middle East. In his most recent book, the Achilles Trap, about a U. S Iraq, friendship or partnership that turned into decades of hostility Steve Call writes, the recent disclosure of extensive records documenting Saddam's side of the story raises the question of whether Washington might have managed the struggle differently, so that after the 911 attacks, Saddam might not have loomed as such an estranged and threatening figure. That is to ask, why did America fail to contain Saddam Hussein in the way that it managed to contain the rulers of North Korea, Libya and Syria? Kaul says the answer cannot be that Saddam was, by comparison with the difficult leaders of those countries, utterly unmanageable. Call it realism or a devil's bargain, but the Iraqi leader rewarded American corporations and found some common ground with the Reagan and George H.W. bush administrations for nearly a decade, an arrangement rooted in shared interests that likely would have survived if Saddam had not invaded Kuwait. That was Steve Kahl in his excellent book the Achilles Trap, on whether it was possible to manage the problem of Saddam rather than going to war. Now it is impossible to know for sure how the past 35 years might have been different, but it is fair to ask whether war could have or should have been avoided in 1991. Today, the Trump administration and its pro war cheerleaders in Congress and right wing media promise us the war in Iran was right and will end in victory. It won't be a quagmire. Well, maybe it won't, but history has something to teach us about the logic of escalation. As John Dower once put it, language and rhetoric themselves become a prison, and the machinery of destruction has its own momentum. If Iran has in fact been at war with the United States for 47 years, why would anyone believe it could be ended so easily? They've rejected every opportunity to renounce their

[Jeffrey Engel]

nuclear ambitions, and we can't take it anymore.

[Martin DeCaro]

Historian Jeffrey Engel is the founding director of the center for Presidential History at Southern Methodist University, and he is the author of when the world seemed George H.W. bush and the End of the Cold War. Tap subscribe now in the show Notes to skip ads, get early access and enjoy all of our bonus content or go to historyasithappens.com and sign up. Jeffrey Engel, welcome back.

[Jeffrey Engel]

It's good to see you, as always.

[Martin DeCaro]

So let's begin. In the summer of 1990, before Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, what was the US presence in the Middle east like? We had one base in Bahrain, and what I'm trying to get at here is we have just taken it for granted now for a quarter century that this is what the United States is supposed to be doing, sinking itself in the Middle east, trying to shape political outcomes Somehow in. But in 1990 that world did not exist.

[Jeffrey Engel]

I think you need to start with the Cold War to explain both why the United States enters the conflict, why Saddam Hussein thinks the conflict is possible in the first place. The Cold War had essentially kept the United States both in and out of the Middle East. Obviously we had an alliance of a sort with Israel. But more importantly, the Middle east is where the world's oil came from. Less the United States than the rest of the industrial world. Japan, for example, our key ally at that time, one of our key allies at the time, got more than 90 of its oil from the Middle East. And President Carter had in 1980, after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, had announced what is subsequently called the Carter Doctrine, which stated that the United States perceives the Middle east because of its oil as a vital national security area and that we will use any force necessary. And when he says any force necessary he means up to and including nuclear weapons.

[Historical Figures / Archival Clips]

Let, let our position be absolutely clear. An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interest of the United States of America. And such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary. Necessary, including military force.

[Martin DeCaro]

I mean this is the important hinge point. 1980 State of the Union address, the so called Carter Doctrine where we're going to now militarize management of the Middle East's oil following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan because that in the minds of Carter and Brzezinski and others threatened the Persian Gulf even though the Red army was thousands of miles away stuck fighting jihadists in the mountains of Afghanistan.

[Historical Figures / Archival Clips]

The region which is now threatened by Soviet troops in Afghanistan is of great strategic importance. It contains more than 2/3 of the world's exportable oil.

[Jeffrey Engel]

Yeah, we have to remember this is after the oil shocks of course and the creation of OPEC in the 1970s. So oil is on people's minds and the United States has embarked at this time upon developing its own domestic production. So we are less dependent upon Middle Eastern oil. But like I said, the global economy is dependent on Middle Eastern oil.

[Martin DeCaro]

And it's not like the United States wasn't involved in the Middle east all prior to 1990. 1991. There was something with Eisenhower in Lebanon, a short lived excursion, sorry to use that term.

[Historical Figures / Archival Clips]

In the wake of the stunning Iraqi revolt, America intervenes in the explosive Mid east crisis. United States Marines pour ashore in Lebanon. Their mission to protect American lives and property and to bolster the rebel threatened Beirut regime.

[Martin DeCaro]

Reagan and the nightmare of Lebanon. And in the early 1980s, you mentioned the United States has had an alliance, although not by treaty with Israel. Reagan sold AWAC surveillance planes to the Saudi Arabians. We bombed Libya several weeks ago.

[Historical Figures / Archival Clips]

In New Orleans, I warned Colonel Gaddafi we would hold his regime accountable for any new terrorist attacks launched against American citizens. More recently, I made it clear we would respond as soon as we determined conclusively who was responsible for such attacks.

[Martin DeCaro]

There was the shuttle diplomacy by kissinger during the 1973 war. So the United States has had interests and was involved to some degree in the Middle east, but not the way it became involved post 1990. Right.

[Jeffrey Engel]

So I'll cut to the conclusion in a sense that I think that the Gulf War, 1990, 91, is when the United States became a Middle Eastern state. That is to say, we became so entrenched before we were offshore balancers, you might say we were interested in our navy protecting the global comm commons, making sure that the oil flowed through. After 1990, 91, the United States is a de facto Gulf state.

[Martin DeCaro]

I always talk about continuities on this podcast. Jeffrey Engel, but one major Sejura, I love that word. One major break that does change things and makes the new reality possible is the end of the Cold War.

[Jeffrey Engel]

Yeah. And Iraq was somewhat of a Soviet client state. Remember in the Cold War, in the Middle east, as in other places, the superpowers, and this is going to be painting with a broad brush, but the superpowers essentially pick their local friends. And as long as their local friends balanced out each other, then we had a tense peace. So the Soviets had influence in Iraq, we had influence in Israel at that time. And these things fluctuate over time. We're still a few years into the rapprochement, if you will, between the United States and Egypt. After the peace treaty between Israel and Egypt, these things are in flux. But the real key, that thing that happens. Well, two things. The first is before we get to the end of the Cold War, we have to remember that Iraq has a long, bloody, brutal war with Iran.

[Martin DeCaro]

Sure, yeah. That's an important prelude, I should say, to this. So the United States, speaking of involvement in that region, our clients, although it's a question of who is pulling whose strings. Our client was the Shah. He received all the US Military weaponry he wanted from the United States. Right. The Shah goes down in 1979, replaced by the Islamic Republic. Saddam Hussein invades Iran in 1980.

[Historical Figures / Archival Clips]

It was in the early hours of this morning that Iraqi tanks ground across the border into Iran The Iraqis declared aim is to control the Shatt Al Arab waterway, up which ships sail to the Iraqi.

[Martin DeCaro]

The U.S. reagan administration winds up secretly trying to help Saddam survive that war. Someone famously said it's too bad somebody has to win or that they just can't destroy each other entirely. So the United States helps Saddam Hussein's regime survive. And after the end of the 1980s, both countries are severely weakened.

[Jeffrey Engel]

Remember, Iran at this point is genuinely a revolutionary state, very radical with an aggressive foreign policy. Saddam Hussein believed that he was defending the rest of the Middle east from Iranian incursion. And this is actually kind of important to his psychological state at the beginning of the Gulf War, because not only had Iraq suffered tremendously and hundreds of thousands of deaths crippled their economy and so on and so for. For years and years, but he also thought that the rest of the Gulf in some ways owed Iraq, owed him for being the shield at the front of blunting the Iranian assault upon the world. So this is a very active moment in the revolutionary zeal of Iran and also of Iran's changing influence in the Middle East. As you point out, after the Shah, then you have the Cold War end.

[Historical Figures / Archival Clips]

The totalitarian era is passing, its old ideas blown away like leaves from an

[Jeffrey Engel]

ancient lifeless tree, which essentially, as I like to say, takes the global snow globe of geopolitics and shakes it up. And no one's quite sure where things are going to end up. And Saddam Hussein sees this as a moment, as an opportunity. He notices that German unification is the big issue on everybody's plate. He noticed that NATO's future is being debated. And he says, maybe paraphrasing dramatically here, maybe nobody will really notice, or if they notice, really care if we change the balance slightly in the Middle east and if I were to acquire our neighbor Kuwait, or at least acquire more of its oil. And he'd been threatening this for a while. He would threaten this every couple of years. I mean, this is not a new idea. It's kind of like if President Trump decides to use military force to take Greenland in a couple of years, we will look back and say, well, you know, he'd been talking about that for a while. Saddam Hussein was talking about.

[Martin DeCaro]

Yeah, because he believed Kuwait had been, what, stealing Iraq's oil.

[Jeffrey Engel]

A couple things. He thought the Kuwaitis were stealing his oil. They were doing slant drilling because, remember, they're neighbors. And more importantly, Iraq was broke. He wanted to flood the market with cheap oil. The idea being that even at a lower profit rate, we'll make more. If we can pump more. But his OPEC neighbors, including Kuwait cartel members. Yeah, thank you. They decided that they liked production just where it was. Thank you very much. We like profit margins. So the whole reason that Saddam Hussein invades Kuwait is in order to sell more oil because he's bankrupt, to find some way to rebuild his country after the Iranian war and after he felt the rest of the Middle east hadn't done enough to pay him back.

[Martin DeCaro]

The parallels between today and what happened 30 years ago are of course, not perfect. I mean, the US And Iran have been hostile for a while, the JCPOA notwithstanding. But in the 1980s, we already mentioned how the U.S. the Reagan administration, helped Saddam survive the war with Iran. The 1980s, the United States and Saddam Hussein were not enemies. One year there, mid-80s, 1987, actually, an Iraqi warplane hit the USS Stark. It was a mistaken attack. 37Americans were killed. Reagan did not publicly criticize Saddam Hussein. Saddam Hussein apologized kindly, conveying to the families of the victims my personal condolences and sympathy. And I should say I learned a lot of these details from reading Steve Kahl's book, the Achilles Trap. He talks about how in 1988, when Saddam Hussein gassed the Kurds, US leaders did not come down harshly on Saddam Hussein. Even days before he was about to invade Kuwait, US Leaders within the Bush administration were wondering, is he really going to go ahead with this? What's actually happening there? Even in those days before President George H.W. bush sent a letter to Iraq's president to reassure him. My administration continues to desire better relations with Iraq. So the invasion of Kuwait happens.

[Historical Figures / Archival Clips]

It is a prescription for war, this Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, the tiny country that is a primary source of oil for much of the Western world. But tonight, the United States, the Soviet Union, Israel and other powers are concentrating on diplomatic and economics.

[Jeffrey Engel]

Security Council in emergency session has demanded the immediate withdrawal of Iraqi troops from Kuwait following last night's invasion. It's calling for urgent talks to resolve the crisis. Financial markets around the world were hit

[Historical Figures / Archival Clips]

as oil prices soared.

[Martin DeCaro]

Why did the Bush administration misjudge Saddam's intention to actually go ahead and do something as stupid as invade another country? And how did it initially respond?

[Jeffrey Engel]

They and everyone else in the Middle east and every other analyst throughout the world thought Saddam Hussein was bluffing. Why? Because as I mentioned before, he had bluffed this many times before, and every time they had paid him off a little bit, the Kuwaitis, and they moved on. And the other thing is, people said, well, that would be a really dumb thing to do to invade your neighbor when you're just trying to sell more oil, don't disrupt the market. You know, just if you're trying to sell more oil, let's find another way to do it. Everyone in the Middle east, every other state and everyone in the State Department and everyone in the Pentagon looked at this and said, boy, that would be really dumb for Saddam Hussein to do it. And we usually don't anticipate our enemies doing dumb things. So, yes, Saddam was blustering. Yes, he was moving troops to the border. He had done that many times before.

[Martin DeCaro]

You want to talk about April Glassby and the messages the administration sent to Saddam about whether he should do this or not?

[Jeffrey Engel]

Yeah. This is a personal cause of mine because I feel. Ambassador, I know Ambassador Glassby has been mistreated in the press at the time and then for mistreated by history. So she is the United States ambassador to Iraq. She, well, well experienced diplomat had been ambassador before. She is called in during this moment when Saddam Hussein is blustering, as he does, often called in to talk to Saddam Hussein and to remind him of American priorities. And she says the following. The United States takes no position on border disputes between two neutral countries. Two countries that were not allied with. And by the way, that's exactly what the United States says about the other 7800 border disputes around the world. We can't be adjudicating everywhere, but we assure you that we are dedicated towards a peaceful resolution. Which, by the way, were exactly what her talking points from the State Department said that she should say. That is literally textbook perfect.

[Martin DeCaro]

Sure.

[Jeffrey Engel]

Diplomat speak.

[Martin DeCaro]

I got your book. Open to page 381. We have no opinion on the Arab. Arab conflicts like your border disputes with Kuwait. She said, we hope you can solve this problem using any suitable methods, but it would also never excuse settlement of disputes by other than peaceful means.

[Jeffrey Engel]

Yeah, that's exactly what she was supposed to say. She did. She did her job just right.

[Martin DeCaro]

So how did that go to. April Glassby gave Sanam a green light to invade Kuwait.

[Jeffrey Engel]

I mean, that's not what happened after the invasion. April Glaspie's actually out of the country when the invasion happened. So that's not great for her in terms of her. Look, she's home on regular vacation after the invasion. Iraq releases the transcript of this conversation and they tweak the words a little bit so that if you didn't know how diplomats are supposed to speak with each other, if you were actually genuinely ignorant about how diplomacy works, you could easily read the Transcript and say, well, Saddam Hussein said, I'm going to take Kuwait. And she said, well, we have no opinion about that. Well, isn't that a green light? No, that's not actually the way diplomacy works. But if you're ignorant and you want to make a public opinion point, which Saddam Hussein smartly did after the invasion, you would say, well listen, the Americans could have told him to stop it, could have said, we're going to rain holy hell down on you. We're going to blow up your capital if you take one foot into Kuwait. Why didn't she say that? Well, that's because that's not, not the way people talk. Glassby said, we need to resolve this without the use of military force. Sure.

[Martin DeCaro]

And the United States had never fought a major war in the Middle east before.

[Jeffrey Engel]

This is the way diplomats talk.

[Martin DeCaro]

That's the world I want to recreate in the minds of the listeners here. 1990, only one permanent military base and an administration filled with experience and prudence. That was George H.W. bush's favorite word. I think leaders, Bush, Colin Powell, Scrocroft, James Baker. He actually had experienced, intelligent people who approach this sudden crisis. Right. That exploded on them, you know, what do we do now? It wasn't just automatically push the button and start bombing. As Americans woke up two Saturdays ago to learn that we're at war with Iran. The initial response to what happened here was very, very cautious. Right.

[Jeffrey Engel]

You're right. There is no knee jerk response. And again, I have to stress, the big issue on everybody's plate is Germany. So suddenly he has this other confrontation. And the first reaction from American policymakers, aside from the public statements of oh, this is terrible, you shouldn't do this, please retreat. The first private reaction. We have the transcript of the very first National Security Council meeting that President Bush had with Colin Powell and Dick Cheney and others. This is a real proud historian moment because all the other transcripts, I forget the exact number, let's say 64 transcripts of the Gulf War period from National Security Council meetings had been declassified except for this one. Myself and others at Texas A and M and where the Bush library has pushed and pushed and pushed and filed suit after suit after suit for years to get this one released. Most of the time in my experience, almost always in my experience when I find something that was classified that I suddenly get declassified, I look at it and say, have, have no idea why that should have been classified in the first place because we classify way too much stuff. This is the only time in my entire career Where I read a transcript of a document and said, wow, now I understand why they classified it.

[Martin DeCaro]

Yeah, it's released only in 2013. As you note here on page 385 of your book, the discussion was what does it matter if there's an Iraqi or a Kuwaiti flag on a barrel of oil?

[Jeffrey Engel]

The reaction in the room on that first national security meeting is meh, this is not great, but do we really care that much? They're hardcore realists. Dick Cheney in particular says, listen, why do we care about the Middle east at all? We care about oil. What does Saddam Hussein want to do? He wants to sell oil. In fact, he wants to sell oil at a cheaper price than we're currently getting. You know, if we just hold our noses and say this is just the way it's going to be, this actually could work out pretty well for us.

[Martin DeCaro]

Amazing.

[Jeffrey Engel]

And no one has a really good argument against that in the first couple of meetings because again, this is a whole new situation. They are really genuinely thinking in real time about this. Now I have to say it takes a couple of days for the administration and Brent Scowcroft in particular to sort of put people's minds on a more logical framework. And they conclude by the 5th of August that no, we should not do nothing because the Cold War is ending. Therefore we are right now writing the rules of the road for the international system, for the post Cold War order. And if the first thing that happens in the post Cold War order is an invasion that is allowed to stand, won't that tell every other tin pot dictator that they too can use aggression,

[Martin DeCaro]

we have to do something but not necessarily go to war. So. So yeah, you note here how the initial assessment, it wasn't a concern about Kuwait sovereignty. Kuwait really wasn't a very much loved country anyway. It wasn't a democracy ideology, notions of liberty, high minded principles. You mention here again on page 385 of your book. That wasn't part of the conversation. It was oil. And if Saddam Hussein gonna have a lot more oil, he'll sell that oil. I mean the idea of him controlling too much of the world's oil. But why would anyone control the oil? Not to sell it.

[Jeffrey Engel]

Exactly. And that's what we want. The Kuwaitis are not beloved by their other neighbors. So there was really nobody banging the drum saying let's go rescue Kuwait. The only argument that one could make would be we need to stop Saddam Hussein, stop him from a. Yes, controlling global oil potentially or a large percentage of it. B, we have no on the ground military presence in the Gulf to speak of the Saudis, whose oil fields are just a little drive away from Saddam's tanks. They had basically no defenses against somebody as powerful as Saddam Hussein because nobody ever thought that anybody would do this. So suddenly you're faced with the specter, however small, the likelihood of Saddam Hussein deciding, my eyes are bigger and bigger and bigger. I'm going to take more and more and therefore I already control, let's say, a quarter of the world supply. If I go to take Saudi Arabia as well, I'll have half the world's supply. Won't I be a really important player then?

[Martin DeCaro]

Was he? Yeah. Was he threatening to do that? I mean, did Saudi Arabia ask Washington for help here?

[Jeffrey Engel]

That is a very. The way you phrase that question is actually very important because the Saudis, as you know, and this of course leads directly to 9, 11, which I'm sure we'll end up with. The Saudis are very protective of their kingdom from non Muslims and they had for years been the Saudi government been charged essentially with keeping the holy lands pure. Therefore, they're really not sure whether they want to allow Americans to come in when this first becomes an idea in the first week of August, come in and defend Saudi Arabia. Yes, we don't want to be invaded, but on the other hand, we don't want infidels on our land. And this is a real problem. And American policymakers need to tread very carefully here. Dick Cheney actually is the one who goes and sort of signs the deal in person where they say you may start to put in troops to protect us, but we're not entirely sure how many and we're not entirely sure where they're going to go. And we don't want them running around the country. They need to be very controlled. We'll send in some fighter jets. And of course, if you're sending fighter jets and you need people to protect

[Martin DeCaro]

fighter jets, those bases are still there. A certain fellow by the name of Mosama bin Laden did not appreciate that he wanted to defend Saudi Arabia from Iraq. And the Saudi royal family said, thanks, but no thanks. Your ragtag army from Afghanistan is not quite up to the task.

[Jeffrey Engel]

Yeah. And if you jump ahead, and I think this is, this helps to explain the sensitivity for the Saudi Osama bin Laden. Among his many justifications for hating the west and declaring jihad on the west was the presence of foreign, I. E. Western, I. E. American troops in the holy land of Saudi Arabia. This is when they get there.

[Martin DeCaro]

So another conflict from a past era was Casting a shadow here. That would be Vietnam. Before we get to Vietnam, and how Bush travels from, well, who cares about Kuwait to we've got to do something to, okay, now we've got to go to war over this. I do want to get to that key sequence. How did he and his top people in his administration, how did they feel about the United States potentially getting involved in this region where it had never fought a major war before?

[Jeffrey Engel]

We are as far removed from the Iraq war, that is to say, the war that was begun by the United States in 2003 and ended a decade later. I would argue with American defeat. We are as far removed from that as the people that we're discussing now in 1990 were from the defeat in Vietnam. So just like today, there was a large component of Americans who did not want large foreign wars, especially since our last experience with large foreign wars had been unpleasant, had been disappointing and disastrous even.

[Martin DeCaro]

Don't forget Grenada. Oh, wait, hold on. That wasn't.

[Jeffrey Engel]

Well, yeah, that's the thing. And you can find a moment here and there. But there are also other moments where the American people are not, not totally thrilled with their military effectiveness. I'll give you two examples, the first being obviously President Carter's inability to use military force to solve the Iranian hostage crisis. Whether or not he should have used military force, the force he ultimately tries to use, goes terribly wrong. And we appear to be less than dangerous. We appear to be incompetent. Secondly, we had. In the early 1980s, President Reagan had put US troops on the ground in. In Lebanon. Hundreds of them wound up dying in a terrorist assault.

[Historical Figures / Archival Clips]

Now the number is 191 in the Beirut massacre, 191 Marines dead in the

[Jeffrey Engel]

explosion at their head.

[Historical Figures / Archival Clips]

I know there are no words that can express our sorrow and grief over the loss of those splendid young men and the injury to so many others.

[Jeffrey Engel]

Reagan therefore pulled out and said, we don't want to have troops on the ground anymore. So the last two times, if you will, the United States tried to use military force in the Middle east had gone really bad.

[Historical Figures / Archival Clips]

I have no regret of the fact that we went in there with the idea of trying to bring peace to that troubled country. We are redeploying because once the terrorist attack started, there was no way that we could really contribute to the original mission by staying there as a target, just hunkering down, waiting for further attacks.

[Martin DeCaro]

The conversation continues. Tap. Subscribe now in the show Notes to get early access ad free listening and all of our bonus content. Tired of interruptions Tap subscribe now or go to historyasithappens.com. So the idea of the Iraq war becoming another Vietnam, Bush had to say, this will not be another Vietnam.

[Historical Figures / Archival Clips]

Should military action be required, this will not be another Vietnam. This will not be a protracted drawn out war.

[Martin DeCaro]

This is where the Powell doctrine comes from. Overwhelming military force with clear achievable objectives. The plan was not to go all the way to Baghdad. Dick Cheney gave an interview that he probably regretted at some point later on when he talked about how dumb it would have been to go all the way to Baghdad. But Professor Engel, how does Bush go from well, who cares about Kuwait to we now have to get an international coalition to expel Saddam Hussein from Kuwait militarily. How does he make that trip?

[Jeffrey Engel]

He decides with his advisors that this is the test of the post Cold War system and that we need to stand up for the foundation of the international system being law and order that is recognized through the United Nations. Now what does that mean? We need to stand by it? I don't know. You don't know? At this point, nobody knows. He just says, we're not going to let this stand.

[Historical Figures / Archival Clips]

This is the first assault on the new world that we seek, the first test of our mettle. Had we not responded to this first provocation with clarity of purpose, if we do not continue, continue to demonstrate our determination, it would be a signal to actual and potential despots around the world. America and the world must defend common vital interests and we will. America and the world must support the rule of law and we will. America and the world must stand up to aggression and we will.

[Jeffrey Engel]

Maybe economic sanctions will get Saddam to pull back. Maybe if we threaten him, he'll pull back. Maybe if we send 10 troops, he'll pull back. We don't know. Ultimately, the United States is going to wind up sending the largest overseas force since Vietnam, half a million troops and a very large international coalition to expel Saddam Hussein from Kuwait. But in August, when Bush says this will not stand, he doesn't say, here are the things we're going to do. He actually says, quite literally in that when he says this will not stand. Famous line from a press conference.

[Historical Figures / Archival Clips]

This will not stand, this aggression against Kuwait.

[Jeffrey Engel]

This will not stand. Now, excuse me, I have some work to do.

[Martin DeCaro]

It didn't take him long to move from this will not stand. Now I have actually decided what we should do here and that is go to over this. He needed a coalition, though. He felt like he needed the world on his side for the new World

[Historical Figures / Archival Clips]

order, a new world order can emerge, a new era.

[Jeffrey Engel]

You need a coalition. And he also needed a coalition at home because, you know, we are still in the wake of Vietnam. You mentioned the Powell Doctrine, referring to Colin Powell, who, of course was the chairman of Joint Chiefs and a Vietnam veteran who believed that government had let the troops down in Vietnam by not rallying public support and by not giving enough military aid. So the very first war plan that Powell, with Dick Cheney, that Powell presents to President Bush is terrible and by all accounts, intentionally terrible. They wanted Bush to realize that going to war using military force was potentially going to open up another Vietnam quagmire. So the military plan they came up with would have required a whole lot of American deaths. And President Bush and Brent Scowcroft, his national security advisor, said, quite frankly, hey, you guys can do better than this. The plan, for example, called for the United States army to drive directly into the heart of Saddam's ground defenses. And Bush said, you're smarter than this. Give me a real plan. And so they do. They come back in with a real plan. And ultimately Bush says, okay, now that you're serious, and you know I'm serious, I'm going to tell you something that shows you I'm really serious. He turns to Powell and turns to Cheney and says, great, I approve. Let me know what you need. And he walks out of the room. The idea being, you're not going to be hamstrung. We're going to give the military what it needs to win this war.

[Martin DeCaro]

So we know now, of course, that the war was very brief, that the Iraqi defenses did not withstand the power of the United States. But in the planning stages, was Bush concerned that there could actually be a lot of American deaths, something he wanted to avoid?

[Jeffrey Engel]

Very much so. The Pentagon had shipped 50,000 body bags to the Middle east for the 500,000 troops that we had. Now that you can say, well, gee, that's a crazy number. But that also tells you that they. Well, we hope we don't have to use these, but I was only a

[Martin DeCaro]

teenager, but I remember all the Vietnam talk. I remember no blood for oil. That slogan, anti war slogan. I want to talk about domestic opposition to the war, but just internationally. I said Bush needed a coalition. There were probably some people, people, countries who were skittish about this. Right. But he was able to convince them to go along with it.

[Jeffrey Engel]

You could even argue this is the high point of American diplomacy and prestige of the entire post1945 period. I would agree, because Bush puts His personal credibility on the line and says, the United States, we are the most powerful nation the post Cold War world is forming and we are going to lead it into an era of law and order through the United Nations. So he does everything by the textbook, if you will, even though the textbook has not been written. He and his diplomats, James Baker, Secretary of State in particular, travels around the world numerous times, meeting with every important leader in the world and looking them in the eye and saying, come along on our side, we'll do most of the fighting by the way, come along on our side and you'll like the way it turns out.

[Martin DeCaro]

The best vote or the most important vote of all though, was from. We know who.

[Jeffrey Engel]

Well, from Russia. Yeah, Gorbachev, they have a veto and, and the Chinese, by the way, in the United nations, because remember, Bush went and got authorization from the United nations for this. The Chinese also have a vet plateau and the Chinese were persuaded to abstain.

[Martin DeCaro]

James Baker said that was when the Cold War ended, when Gorbachev said he would not block at the Security Council

[Jeffrey Engel]

in a previous era, the United States using military force to attack.

[Martin DeCaro]

Yeah, I know.

[Jeffrey Engel]

Client state, that's what we call the first day of World War iii.

[Martin DeCaro]

Gorbachev was an anti war person, though. So what was his reasoning for allowing this to go ahead? I guess he wanted to see a new world order too. Man, I don't know.

[Jeffrey Engel]

He's dealing with bigger problems, to be honest. He's dealing with the collapse of his own country. Yes, but more importantly, he's dealing with. With the most important issue in the world is actually not Iraq. It's still what's going on in Germany and the future of Germany. So Gorbachev needs to stay on the right side of his, hopefully new European allies, not only to integrate the Soviet Union into the post Cold War world, but also keep the Germans down.

[Martin DeCaro]

You know, that's a great point because from our vantage today, the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and then the US decision to expel Saddam seems like a much more important historical event than the reunification of Germany, because that went swimmingly, led to 30 years of peace, despite all the concerns about a newly empowered and unified Germany in the middle of Europe. But you know, at the time, probably very few people believed that this war, this short war in early 1991 would lead to 30 years of the US being basically in a permanent quagmire in the Middle East.

[Jeffrey Engel]

I think that's right. And I think one of the reasons is President Bush was actually being honest with the American people when he Said we are fighting to uphold United nations security and sovereignty and the rule of law. And the United States, excuse me, the United nations had authorized the United States and its allies to use military force to liberate Kuwait. Period. The mandate, the legal mandate that Bush felt he had, he also thought it was strategically wise. But the legal mandate that Bush thought he had was not to go into Iraq, not to unsettle Iraq, not to depose Saddam Hussein, it was to liberate Kuwait. And you think about it, it makes sense. If you're fighting a war to protect sovereign borders, you don't want to then violate another country's sovereign borders. So when American led forces are remarkably successful in expelling Saddam's forces from Kuwait, a question arises which is, should we go further? Should we exceed our mandate? Should we go to Baghdad? Should we take out Saddam Hussein and Bush and those around him again, including Dick Cheney, are all unified in the answer that no. No, because it's not our mandate. And no, because if we go into Iraq, doesn't that mean that we have to take care of Iraq?

[Historical Figures / Archival Clips]

Because if we'd gone to Baghdad, we would have been all alone. There wouldn't have been anybody else with us. It would have been a US Occupation. None of the Arab forces that were willing to fight with us in Kuwait were willing to invade Iraq. Once you got to Iraq and took it over and took down Saddam Hussein's government, then what are you going to put in its place? That's a very volatile part of the world. And if you take down the central government in Iraq, you can easily end up seeing pieces of Iraq fly off. Part of it the Syrians would like to have to the west part of eastern Iraq the Iranians would like to claim and fought over for eight years. In the north you've got the Kurds. And if the Kurds spin loose and join with the Kurds in Turkey, then you threaten the territorial integrity of Turkey. It's a quagmire.

[Martin DeCaro]

But in the final analysis, the United States did not extract itself from the situation even after decisively winning that war. The no fly zones and the sanctions and the ongoing conflict with Saddam Hussein, you know, during the 1990s, every year or so there'd be another bombing of Iraq somewhere for violating the no fly zone, what have you. We don't have time to get into the whole history here. Then of course, after 9, 11, 2001, everything does change.

[Jeffrey Engel]

I have a great analogy for you. Sure, I have a great analogy for you. Because when dictators like Saddam Hussein, when dictators violently lose wars. Usually their people take care of them. That's just the way things are. Their military is embarrassed and the guy is gone. The odds of Saddam Hussein surviving defeat in the Gulf War, which he ultimately does, the odds of that were less than the odds of the jets winning the super bowl next year. Thousand to 100, thousand to one against him and he pulls a rabbit out of a hat.

[Martin DeCaro]

Did Bush think about doing this unilaterally?

[Jeffrey Engel]

First of all, you couldn't do it unilaterally because you needed to put troops on the ground, which meant you would need close by states, Saudi Arabia being most important. And then once you start negotiating with the United nations. This was always conceived to be international action. Yes, the firepower, the vast majority of firepower came from the United States. But there were dozens of countries whose troops participated. And even those countries whose troops didn't participate, Japan and Germany for example, because their own constitutional issues at home sent a lot of money and sent a lot of supplies.

[Martin DeCaro]

So he went to the un. He also went to Congress where there was some vehemence, opposition. You're going to get us into another Vietnam. No blood for oil. This is not worth the lives of Americans. What are we doing here? The Cold War is over. Time for a peace dividend, all of that, right?

[Historical Figures / Archival Clips]

And what kind of victory will it be if tens of thousands of people

[Jeffrey Engel]

die in the Persian Gulf?

[Historical Figures / Archival Clips]

So many of them, And I need to state this point carefully because I mean no disrespect, so many of them disproportionately, men and women of color, low and moderate income. What kind of victory will this be? Some causes are worth fighting for. Some causes are worth fighting for.

[Jeffrey Engel]

This cause is not worth fighting for right now.

[Historical Figures / Archival Clips]

We must stay the course with economics. Economic sanctions, continue the pressure, continue the squeeze, move forward on the diplomatic front. And Mr. President, we must not, we must not rush to war.

[Martin DeCaro]

But the war, at least the perception, it went so well. Now, those people who had opposed it, oh, it looks like they were on the wrong side of history. And this then leads to a new problem, Right. We have kicked the Vietnam syndrome. We have mastered war.

[Jeffrey Engel]

Yep. An element of that, by the way, is we have demonstrated the United States through our use of advanced technologies that we are not one generation ahead of everybody else or two generations ahead of anybody else, but three generations ahead of anybody else. So we are so effective that there is no cure.

[Martin DeCaro]

Do you think that this war helped lead to the overconfidence in air power that we've seen ever since?

[Jeffrey Engel]

Oh, most Definitely, most definitely, because it was very effective. By the way, our air power has gotten much more precise than it was even then. We remember the Gulf War for the first real widespread use of our precision weapons that we could hit the exact spot we wanted. Those were actually a very, very small number of the munitions fired. They are the overwhelming majority, if not the totality of munitions fired in the air war against Iran today.

[Martin DeCaro]

But, you know, I mentioned Steve Call earlier, and he concluded that we look back on this chapter in history, and he said, sure, you might say that it was a success, but it was also a failure. It was a failure to deter Saddam Hussein to begin with. The lesson here being some problems are better managed than eliminated. Because U.S. victory, if you will, in 1990, 1991, created a whole new host of problems. And as it turns out, Professor Engel, the United States has not been able to extract itself from this region.

[Jeffrey Engel]

You know, the Middle east is no less important than it was before. And now we are, as I mentioned earlier, a Gulf War state.

[Martin DeCaro]

It's not working out.

[Jeffrey Engel]

It's not. You know, again, we're only two weeks into this war, and you and I are still trying to figure out what happened in World War I. So two weeks is a short time frame for historians to think about what happened.

[Martin DeCaro]

The final thing, though, the law of unintended consequences. So we're seeing that now already. Right. This is not a repeat of 1990, 91. Whatever qualms I have with that, that did go as Colin Powell had hoped it would go. But today, I mean, the Strait of Hormuz is closed. Oh, well, who thought that might have happened?

[Jeffrey Engel]

This is ultimately why, as you know, I. I have come to the conclusion that George Bush is one of the most underrated presidents we've had.

[Martin DeCaro]

The father.

[Jeffrey Engel]

Yes, thank you. And I mean that only in terms of looking at his diplomacy and his foreign policy, because one of the things that Bush said time and time again was we don't know what the future is going to bring, and the world is a dangerous place. So before we do anything that might be unsettling, let's think about it. Before he goes and defeats Saddam Hussein, he gets an army of almost three quarters of a million troops in the coalition and a world coalition on his side to ultimately do something that in retrospect looks like it should have taken a lot less force. Well, that's because we don't want to leave anything to chance. I think prudence is actually the right word to describe what Bush was all about.

[Martin DeCaro]

Well, one can imagine what the reaction would have been had Donald Trump taken the same course. We're going to go to the UN and try to build up an international coalition to attack Iran, and we're going to go to Congress to have a debate over whether the United States should go to war with Iran, a country of 93 million people. He would have gotten nowhere in both arenas.

[Jeffrey Engel]

And we don't need to imagine that because we saw that that was what George W. Bush did in the run up to the 2003 war. And I think one of the things that the American people realized, Congress realized, and certainly people in the executive branch realized was Bush went to a lot of time and effort to get United nations support. George W. Bush, it didn't really matter. He could have gone to war anytime he wanted. And Trump says, why should I spend a year building a coalition when I can do what I want?

[Historical Figures / Archival Clips]

Tomorrow, as I report to you, air attacks are underway against military targets in Iraq. We are determined to knock out Saddam Hussein's nuclear bomb potential. We will also destroy his chemical weapons facilities. Much of Saddam's artillery and tanks will be destroyed. Our operations are designed to best protect the lives of all the coalition forces by targeting Saddam's vast military arsenal. Initial report reports from General Schwarzkopf are that our operations are proceeding according to plan.

[Martin DeCaro]

On the next episode of History As It Happens, we'll continue to explore the issue of permanent war. Have you ever wondered where that phrase peace through strength comes from and how it became peace means war? That is next as we report History As It Happens. You can keep tabs on what I'm doing here by signing up for my free free newsletter. Just go to Substack and search for History As It Happens. Marketing is hard, but I'll tell you a little secret. It doesn't have to be. Let me point something out. You're listening to a podcast right now and it's great. You love the host. You seek it out and download it. You listen to it while driving, working out, cooking, even going to the bathroom. Podcasts are a pretty close companion. And this is a podcast ad. Did I get your attention? You can reach great listeners like yourself with podcast advertising from Libsyn Ads. Choose from hundreds of top podcasts offering host endorsements or run a pre produced ad like this one across thousands of shows. To reach your target audience in their favorite podcasts with Libsyn Ads, go to Libsynads. Com, that's L, I B S Y N ads.com today.