I blame BushOne for not finishing the invasion of Kuwait off with a push all the way to Baghdad and Tehran while we had so much force available at the time to get the job done.
at least Powell could have been allowed to mop up the militants as they fled to Baghdad and Tehran and who knows where else.
all that was left was a tinder box.
smart has nothing to do with geopolitik btw, imo.
why some are allowed to dabble in it for so long is a mystery, in a way.
Good points.
You can also blame Bush Two for not fighting the war properly. This assumes that we should have gone there at all. I do not believe in Petraeus-style winning of hearts and minds. That is for host governments conducting counter-insurgency operations, not for invading armies. I believe in minding our own business for the most part. However, if we go to war, we should be dropping Daisy cutters like rain and crushing the enemy. Also, once Baghdad fell we should have kept rolling into Iran and crushed them too. After toppling both governments and crushing their militaries, we should have set up our puppet governments and left. If they acted up again, we could have dropped more daisy-cutters. No reason to get drawn into low-intensity conflict and occupation.
The ‘90 UN resolution was for ejecting Iraqi troops from Kuwait, not for taking Baghdad.