Why Are We in the Desert?

MIDDLE East; UNITED States

This article comments on the military intervention of the U.S. in the Middle East in 1990. Iraq's aggression against Iran a decade ago had even less justification than its invasion of Kuwait in summer 1990, but the was against Iran was aided, abetted, and applauded by the U.S., which provided Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's forces with military intelligence and naval protection. His chemical warfare against his own Kurdish subjects brought hardly a murmur of criticism so long as Hussein was regarded as an ally of the U.S. What is most troubling about the U.S. military intervention in the Persian Gulf is that it extends and confirms a pronounced tendency toward the use of armed force whenever the U.S. government perceives a development not to its liking anywhere in the Third World. One likely consequence of the Middle East intervention is the establishment of a permanent and prominent U.S. military presence in the region. In their determination to draw the wrong lessons from bad experience, U.S. policymakers have decided that if surrogates will not protect this country's interests, American armed forces will.