Before I hit the rack, I have one GHWB story, and it's only indirect, and probably others who worked in DC have a similar recollection, but this is a good time to tell it in order to remind people not to be cynical about him, so I'll tell it.
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It was in 1990 in the lead-up to the first Gulf War. I was working in the Senate for John Heinz. And everyone was yelling about oil. (Bob Dole: O -I- L.) So Heinz had me finding out everything I could learn about oil and reserves and how much it would hurt us to lose it, etc. /2
And I didn't know anything about oil; I was brought in thinking we were going to do arms control with the Soviets in 1990. So I'm running around lost in piles of data about energy and pipelines and sanctions and all that stuff.
One day, Heinz has a meeting with Bush. /3
One day, Heinz has a meeting with Bush. /3
I think it was lunch or something. And he calls me after and says: "Forget all that stuff about oil."
And I'm like... uh, okay. *drops pile of economic data in the trash* But why?
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And I'm like... uh, okay. *drops pile of economic data in the trash* But why?
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"The President is going to do this no matter what. He's convinced it's 1938 and this is a challenge to global order."
In other words, all that stuff Bush said about a new, rules-based order? He meant it. Every word.
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In other words, all that stuff Bush said about a new, rules-based order? He meant it. Every word.
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He reiterated to Heinz, as he did to others: he was going to reverse the invasion of Kuwait even if it meant impeachment. He felt he'd lived through this movie once already and he wasn't going to flush everything we'd achieved from 1945 to 1990. And that was that. /6
And for years after, when people would say that Bush did it for the Saudis, or for oil, or for the Houston oilmen, or any of that stuff, I remember my boss coming back to the office and saying: It's 1938, this is Munich, and the President is going to do this, period. /7
Maybe that's not a huge revelation to other folks, but I can tell you that we never really deliberated about oil very much after that, at least not in my office. Protecting the West's oil lifelines would have been enough of a reason to fight, but that's not why Bush did it. /8
I never thought about international politics the same way after that. I realized that the dry reasoning of academic realism wasn't how real people in power think about things like international order and war and peace. And I was glad for Bush being there. /9x
