George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography - Get a Free Blog

There is much evidence that the Bush regime was committed to a new, large-scale war in
the Middle East from the very day of its inauguration. The following analysis was filed
on Palm Sunday, March 19, 1989 by one of the authors of the present study, and was
published in Executive Intelligence Review under the title "Is Bush courting a Middle
East war and a new oil crisis?":
Is the Bush administration preparing a military attack on Iran, Libya, Syria, or other
Middle East nations in a flight forward intended to cut off or destroy a significant part of
the world's oil supply and drastically raise the dollar price of crude on the world markets?
A worldwide pattern of events monitored on Palm Sunday by Executive Intelligence
Review suggests that such a move may be in the works. If the script does indeed call for a
Middle East conflict and a new oil shock, it can be safely assumed that Henry Kissinger,
the schemer behind the 1973 Yom Kippur war, is in the thick of things, through National
Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft and the State Department's number-two man Lawrence
Eagleburger. [...]
Why should the Bush administration now be a candidate to launch an attack on Libya and
Iran, with large-scale hostilities likely in the Gulf? The basic answer is, as part of a manic
flight-forward fit of "American Century" megalomania designed to distract attention from
the fiasco of the new President's first 60 days in office. [fn 24]
Despite the numerous shortcomings in this account, including the failure to identify Iraq
as the target, it did capture the essential truth that Bush was planning a Gulf war. By
August, 1988 at the latest, when Iraq had emerged as the decisive victor in the 8-year
long Iran-Iraq war, British geopolitical thinkers had identified Iraq as the leading Arab
state, and the leading threat to the Israeli-dominated balance of power in the Middle East.
This estimate was seconded by those Zionist observers for whom the definition of
minimal security is the capability of Israel to defeat the combined coalition of all Arab
states. By August of 1988, leading circles in both Britain and Israel were contemplating
ways of preventing Iraq from rebuilding its postwar economy, and were exploring
options for a new war to liquidate the undeniable economic achievements of the Baath
Party. Bush would have been a part of these deliberations starting at a very early phase.
During June and July, this warning was seconded by King Hussein of Jordan, Yassir
Arafat of the PLO, Prince Hassan of Jordan, and Saddam Hussein himself.
The Bush regime's contributions to the orchestration of the Gulf crisis of 1990-91 were
many and indispensable. First there was a campaign of tough talking by Bush and Baker,
designed to goad the new Likud-centered coalition of Shamir (in many respects the most
belligerent and confrontational regime Israel had ever known) into postures of increased
bellicosity. Bush personally referred to Israel as one of the countries in the Middle East
that held hostages. In early March, 1990, Bush said that the US government position was
to oppose Israeli settlements not only on the West Bank of the Jordan and the Gaza Strip,
but also in East Jerusalem. A few days before that, Baker had suggested that US support
for a $400 million loan guarantee program for settling Soviet Jews in Israel would be
forthcoming only if Israel stopped setting up new settlements in the occupied territories.