| ID | 144112 |
| Title Proper | History and policy |
| Other Title Information | please think responsibly |
| Language | ENG |
| Author | Crandall, Russell ; Leach, Wade |
| Summary / Abstract (Note) | Orange flames and smoke lit up Baghdad’s silhouetted skyline. It was 17 January 1991, and the Gulf War was finally under way. Five months earlier, in the early hours of 2 August 1990, Iraqi president Saddam Hussein’s forces had invaded Kuwait. After several days of deliberation and diplomacy, United States secretary of defense Dick Cheney and King Fahd of Saudi Arabia, meeting in the Kingdom, agreed that Washington would rush US forces to Saudi Arabia in order to prevent what appeared to be Saddam’s next conquest. For George H.W. Bush, this military response did not yet mean war. It was time, the US president and decorated Second World War veteran said on 5 August, to ‘push forward on diplomacy’. Yet, three days later, needing to convince a public and Congress fearful of any war’s protracted consequences, Bush’s tone had changed. For support, he turned to history: ‘Appeasement does not work … As was the case in the 1930s, we see in Saddam Hussein an aggressive dictator threatening his neighbors.’ |
| `In' analytical Note | Survival : the IISS Quarterly Vol. 58, No.2; Apr-May 2016: p.185-192 |
| Journal Source | Survival Vol: 58 No 2 |
| Key Words | Defence Policy ; Foreign Policy |