America’s War for the Greater Middle East: A Military History
By Andrew J. Bacevich
Random House, 454 pages, $40
Reviewed by Mike Stimpson
The United States is engaged in its fourth Gulf War, the enemy a product of the third Gulf War.
A retired army colonel, Bacevich has taught military history at Boston University and West Point. America’s War for the Greater Middle East is a followup to his 2013 bestseller, Breach of Trust: How Americans Failed Their Soldiers and Their Country.
The first Gulf War, by Bacevich’s reckoning, was the 1980-88 conflict between Iran and Iraq. In that clash Washington backed the Iraqi military of Saddam Hussein, "thereby emboldening him."
The second Gulf War was Washington’s attempt at swatting down the emboldened Hussein, who invaded neighbouring Kuwait in 1990.
U.S. forces invaded Iraq and ousted the dictator in the third Gulf War, creating a power vacuum that was filled by disorder and sectarian conflict out of which eventually emerged IS.
Islamic State was, Bacevich writes, "the second harvest of poisonous fruit resulting from Operation Iraqi Freedom," the first having been the Sunni Islamist group known as al-Qaida in Iraq.
Among the dozens of other military campaigns and operations covered in this ambitious and provocative historical survey are (first) a botched effort to rescue hostages in Iran in 1980, the disastrous attempt at imposing order on Lebanon circa 1983, the bombing of Moammar Gadhafi’s Libya in 1986, and the more recent invasion and occupation of Afghanistan.
Each action was committed with supposedly high-minded goals such as spreading democracy and promoting human rights. Each produced significant blowback for Washington, as not everyone was pleased to see their country invaded and/or bombed.
Reading America’s War, one gets the impression Pentagon brass (and politicians in both major U.S. parties) are decidedly slow learners regarding the Islamic world. Their efforts repeatedly fail and stoke anti-American sentiment in the process, yet they continue with essentially the same approach.
The pattern brings to mind two old observations: "Everything looks like a nail when all you have is a hammer" and "one definition of insanity is trying the same thing repeatedly but always expecting a different result."
Curiously, the robust expansion of U.S. military activity in the Middle East was sparked by a 1980 pronouncement from the least hawkish president of recent decades.
In what became known as the Carter Doctrine, kindly peanut millionaire Jimmy Carter declared any encroachment on U.S. oil interests in the Persian Gulf "will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force."
Carter’s successor, Ronald Reagan, followed up on that proclamation by supporting Iraq in its war with Iran, a country where a U.S.-installed tyrant was overthrown in 1979 and which Washington feared might embrace partnership with the Soviet Union. (That Reagan also came to secretly supply arms to Iran is another ironic turn.)
Bacevich concludes that "the War for the Greater Middle East (is) a diversion that Americans can ill afford." The U.S. is kidding itself about being able to steer the course of events in the region, he says.
Furthermore, he says it has had a negative impact on domestic freedom and security in the U.S. "One day the American people may awaken to this reality. Then and only then will the war end."
The subject matter is heavy, but America’s War is written in clear, reader-friendly prose. If you seek military history with a critical eye, it’s probably worth the $40.
