The fact, however, is that it was the blundering of George H. W. Bush and Baker in 1990 that set the stage for George W. Bush’s calamitous move 13 years later. It was Papa Bush, after all, who sent American troops half way around the world to launch the First Gulf War, an error of tragic proportions; responsible in its own way for much of the horror that afflicts the Greater Middle East to this day.
Ironically, it happened just as the U.S. seemed about to become king of the global roost, the greatest military power the planet had ever known. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, there was no power around to challenge U.S. hegemony. It was left to America to blight its own future. What is also extraordinary about the First Gulf War is that, like the outbreak of World War I, it was all so unnecessary, the result of feckless leadership, inept diplomacy and shocking miscalculations by both leaders, Saddam Hussein and George H.W. Bush.
