"No, no regrets at all" about not going all the way to Baghdad to get Saddam, George Bush confided to me over the weekend as the world faced yet another tense confrontation with the Iraqi dictator. And no regrets about launching Desert Storm in the first place.
Saddam's invasion of Kuwait seven years ago was a naked act of aggression, the former president recalled, carried out in the full light of day. Simply, Saddam attacked Kuwait because it was both rich and weak - rich with oil and weak in arms. And had Saddam had his way in Kuwait, he wouldn't have stopped there. At the time, diplomacy proved no match for Sad-dam's unlimited appetite.The problem with Saddam, then as now, is not just his possession of an arsenal of mass destruction, but the fact that he remains the only ruler alive who has used chemical or biological weapons aggressively - against Iran during seven years of war and against his own people, the Iraqi Kurds.
Revisiting his decision to halt Desert Storm when he did, Bush has no second thoughts: The target of operation was achieved - pushing the Iraqis out of Kuwait - and a cease-fire was negotiated that required Saddam to dismantle his mass-destruction weapons. Mission accomplished, there was no wisdom in sending American boys to fight in the streets of Baghdad.
That is not, Bush stressed, what he asked the of American people, the Congress or the Gulf coalition when he launched Desert Storm. He understood from Vietnam that ending a war is far more difficult than starting one. The president also understood something that is critical when dealing with the complexities of the Middle East: Even if you win militarily, you can lose politically. Ending the war when he did, Bush achieved a clear political victory and solidly entrenched America's leadership role in the region.
I met Bush at his home in Houston. He seems personally happy and noticeably fit - he looks like a real paratrooper. When we later went out to dinner at a delightful local restaurant, he was received with much warmth (and even applause) by the other patrons.
I did not find any trace of bitterness in his conversation, although he believes the economy he handed over to President Clinton was well on its way to recovery, something for which he still gets no credit today. But he doesn't dwell on this. There is too much to be proud of in his post-presidential life - the Bush Library with 40 million documents and his grandchildren and children, two of them who are already governors and headed for higher office.
Perhaps spurred by last week's CNN broadcast of the rowdy "town meeting" in Ohio about the Iraqi crisis, the former president asked what sort of questions I have encountered in talking on American campuses.
Most questions, I told him, have concerned Desert Storm, its results, and what the American reaction ought to be right now. I offered to him the same straightforward analysis, based upon my vantage point in the Middle East, that I offer to the students.
First, by putting a stop to aggression, Desert Storm deeply discouraged other rulers in the region from following Saddam's example.
Second, the operation placed one of the most dangerous arsenals in the Middle East - that was in the hands of one of the most dangerous despots - under international control. Had this not happened - even with all the inspection difficulties of late - today Saddam could well have a nuclear bomb and would be playing cynically with the economies of the United States and Europe.
Third, and something more important to those of us who live close to Saddam, Desert Storm cut Saddam's military might in half. He was forced to send his best planes to Iran for protection - and he never got them back.
At this point, Bush said he had to laugh at the claim of some experts that Saddam was preparing another war. With what?
Did the students ask about possible Iraqi casualties in a new U.S. attack? Yes, I said. But most were persuaded both that the fault of such casualties would lie in Sad-dam's hands, as they did in Hitler's when Germany was bombed. And, furthermore, as in the case of Nazi aggression, the students agreed that taking early action would save many more innocent lives.
One also cannot forget the as-yet-unrepeated historical precedent of the Desert Storm coalition that brought together East and West, Muslim, Jew and Christian. And, on the heels of the gulf war, the Madrid Conference which Bush sponsored, also brought together impossible participants - Yitzhak Shamir and Hafez Assad of Syria. This started a new momentum of peace that has carried us through until, sadly, these last months.
As a result of developments since the gulf war, I told Bush, one today can hardly imagine the Middle East without an American role, whether it is to promote the peace process or to confront an aggressive military threat. One way or another, we are going to have a new Middle East - one with modern weapons or one with modern economies. Whether we have modern war or modern peace will depend largely on the United States.
Turning to my assessment of the peace process, I felt it my duty to remark to Bush that I did not vote for Benjamin Ne-tan-ya-hu and have not changed my mind since. Yet, I continue to believe that the world is fated to go the way of peace, and one politician and his government cannot stop the march of history.
Stepping out into the lovely Texas evening, Bush said he understood that a future of peace or war in the Middle East was the choice confronting U.S. policy today. Desert Storm and the Madrid Conference were a choice for peace. So is the policy of the current administration that, as I write, has apparently made Saddam stand down. Now, the challenge for American policy is to go to the mat for peace just as it has done to prevent war.
1998 Shimon Peres
Dist. by the L.A Times Syndicate