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Now as I noted before Saddam was not ousted but the
threat possibly from him developing a nuclear program.
an, and other WMD was considered substantial.
and the United States, along with other allies imposed a no-fly zone
on Iraq, and indeed, imposed a zone in the north which Saddam was not allowed
to enter at all with the, the, giving the Kurds in the north some autonomy.
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but having this presence required a, a huge infrastructure.
In the aftermath of the first Gulf War what we saw was an expansion of US
military bases both to do the no-fly zone. but to protect Kuwait,
so bases in Saudi Arabia, in Kuwait in Bahrain,
navy bases in Kuwait the fifth fleet stationing in, in Bahrain
in Dubai and air force bases as well throughout the region.
And this is an infrastructure that was continued to be built up after,
even after 9/11 but you can see beforehand just a much, much larger
military presence than anything that was anticipated or experienced
before 1980. So here we have two competing narratives.
first the idea that it was American weakness; the Vietnam Syndrome.
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the idea that we were unwilling, unable to essentially meet threat
with force because of our fears of Vietnam in the past entanglements.
and that is what gave the message to
others in the Middle East that they could assert
themselves and maybe even threaten us without the
idea of retribution, that they would pay a price.
And that this is what embolden Osama bin Laden to believe and have the audacity
to believe that he could fight a,
a conflict against the United States and win.
and we know some element of truth to that. Bin
Laden wrote that he thought the fact that America left Somalia after one
large-scale skirmish showed that it was a paper tiger that would cut and run.
he also thought, from his experience
in Afghanistan fighting against the Soviet Union,
that even a small band of dedicated fighters could topple a great super power.
So, there is that element of truth but I think it's hard to explain
the totality. it is a not just this notion of American
weakness perhaps that motivated Bin Laden, but a whole slew
of forces that we discussed earlier in, in this class.
the increasing Islamic identity.
the forces of globalization that were
entering and causing conflicts in the region.
the frustration with so many Muslims with the
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and, and, how did the Neocons propose that the
uses of force would have somehow quelled Bin Laden.
that if we had bombed Hezbollah somehow, this would have sent
the more radical elements like Al Qaeda running to the hills.
no.
It might have, have increased their sense of grievance and frustration even more.
are the neo-cons arguing for a full-scale war against Iran at that time?
how would that have been justified and conducted?
So I think this notion of just American
weakness and our failure to respond to all these
different kinds of threats Is, that's what led us to the 9/11 moment.
And what Podhoretz calls World War four as being much too simplistic.
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there's this second competing narrative that it was our
desire to build a Pax Americana in the Middle East.
That our desire for a lucrative way of life dependent on a foreign sources of oil
what was that drove us to increase our
presence and then to militarize the Middle East.
And it is these grievances, it's our
presence ultimately, that motivated Bin Laden to
want to strike against us.
And, again, there is strong element of truth to that.
we do know that this was a grievance that motivated Bin Laden but
also helped to get Bin Laden's support because it was this anti-Americanism
and frustration with the American presence that even people who didn't like Bin
Laden or his tactics or believe in his religious or political ideas saw
him as a force against an American domination.
An American presence of which they were not comfortable.
none the less, I think the idea that the only reason we were in the Middle East
was to build this Pax Americana to protect our
sources of oil also doesn't tell the whole story.
the Middle East in the 1970s and 80s was the battleground in the cold war and
if our, our presence was increased to counteract the possibility of the, of a
Soviet increase there as well. So it was a proxy ground for the Cold War.
of course our defense of the state of Israel was complicated and also
played into our increasing intervention in the Middle East against and
to counter balance some of the other threats that Israel was facing.
after the Gulf War, of course, there had been evidence that Saddam Hussein was
building nuclear weapons and had stockpiles of chemical weapons in,
inside Iraq so our presence was there to prevent that from
occurring. And then, of course, there is the Iran.
And post the 1979 rev, revolution, its desire to be a regional power
and to impose its will and to spread its revolution to other states.
So the United States military was present in many instances because other countries,
allies of ours, wanted us there, invited us there to try to counteract this threat.
If we hadn't come would Iran
simply have been satisfied staying within it's borders, and not try to push it's
revolution elsewhere we'll never know but that
was certainly another reason that our interventions occurred.
so we have a, a complicated story of our Middle East policy.
It's difficult to explain through one particular paradigm.
That's why I wanted to expose you to more
than one.
But think of here we are towards the end, the, the last phases of the 20th century
David SchanzerAssociate Professor of the Practice
