The road to Baghdad lay open before us back in 1991. By then the legends of the million-man Iraqi Army and of the invincible Republican Guard were broken. George Bush had said that Saddam Hussein was "worse than Hitler." But in a curious and sudden shift, the victors would not push into the tyrant's bunker. We winked at rebellions against the despot and then stood idly by as the remnants of his shattered army put down those uprisings.
For all our reticence, we emerged from the war as the guardians of order in the Persian Gulf. We had closed an imperial circle: Where the writ of Pax Britannica once ran, the peace of those lands and sea lanes had become a Pax Americana. The two decades between Britain's withdrawal from "east of Suez" in 1971 and Desert Storm were seen for what they were: an interregnum when the vulnerable land of the peninsula and the gulf were subjected to cruel bids of power from Iran and Iraq. We were drawn there because there was no other provider of order.
Our work was easier in the aftermath of the war. The myth of Arab nationalism had been scattered to the wind; the reticence of the people of the region about identifying with American power had been replaced with an eagerness to have us walk the beat. Kuwait, which had taunted Saudi Arabia about its close ties with the Americans, was now desperate for an American security guarantee. The Saudi way had been vindicated, and with it, the necessity of American primacy. The oil states were ready to underwrite much of the economic burden of our presence and reward us as well -- a privileged place for our products and commerce, a market for our military industry. As imperial work goes, this was the best of assignments.
The fire maker. Today, no shot need be fired on the Iraq- Kuwait border to demonstrate both the logic of American power in the gulf and its difficulties. Our dilemma is laid bare by the sudden deployment into Kuwait: We are not so much the cop on the beat as we are the fire brigade rushing to deal with the work of an arsonist. Saddam Hussein is in the region; we must rush from afar. The cost of his mischief is small to him but infinitely greater to us and to our allies. Sooner or later we must face the inescapable conclusion that it is the arsonist starting fires large and small who must be dealt with if the order of the gulf is to hold.
An outsider venturing into this region will not see the panic so visible during that eerie time in 1990 before military action delivered the region. Everything these desert lands had built -- the great modern infrastructure, the prosperity -- then seemed at the mercy of the Iraqi predators. It would not have been in the nature of things if the people of the region didn't worry then about the will of the American protectors. They had seen American retreats in Iran and Lebanon -- retreats that left an indelible impression.
Desert Storm put an end to all that. The lands of the gulf, too, were shown to be sturdier than the skeptics had said. They were not blown away by the troubles, their stability was not undermined by the presence of large Western forces. There were facilities and air bases from which a modern campaign was waged; there was a security doctrine in Saudi Arabia compatible with that of American forces. A huge war bill was incurred by the Saudi state -- some $60 billion in direct costs. But the center held in the gulf states.
The Clinton administration has articulated a security doctrine for the gulf -- "dual containment" of Iran and Iraq. The underpinning logic is unassailable. We would avoid past mistakes that had us indulge Iraq in order to balance the power of Iran; we would now check both powers. Red lines would be drawn for both. The smaller gulf states and their territorial integrity would be sheltered against Iran and Iraq. Our fear of Iran, so pervasive in the 1980s, would be augmented by a healthy understanding that Iraq, an Arab power, poses great threats as well.
So far, dual containment has had an easy ride. A small war was fought in the gulf the last few months -- between north and south Yemen. From afar it seemed arcane; we paid it little heed. This crisis on the Iraq-Kuwait border is dual containment's first test. Cliches and policy doctrines aside, at the root of the present crisis there clearly remains the enduring problem of the Iraqi state and its leader. Sanctions cannot topple the regime. Great defeats beget consequences, and aggressive states are rehabilitated only when the leaders are replaced with others keen to put the past behind them. The last time around our hand was stayed by exaggerated fears about Iraq's dismemberment -- its "Lebanonization," we said, as if Iraq's nightmare needed to be named for another horror. We feared the Shiite boogeyman, only to see countless thousands fall to the remnant of the Iraqi forces we had spared.
We should be braver this time. We should pay the Russians and the French no heed, for it is America's writ that now runs in the gulf. We needn't fear an Iranian bid for Iraq: The Iranian revolution is on the ropes, and Iraq's people, including the Shiite majority, are patriots possessed of love of home and language and culture. If the opportunity presents itself to go after the Iraqi regime and its master, we should seize it and trust that Iraqis, seared by all they have endured, will construct a better, more modest state. This should not be so difficult a thing to imagine.
