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The second view that I want to present
is a critique essentially liberal critique of the
neoconservative argument and although there are may articulate
critics I want to use the work of
Andrew Bekovich a professor from Boston University who
responds directly to Pot Hart's article and writes
his own called, The Real World War Four arguing that there was a world war that
was going on but it was not the United States versus
these forces emanating from the Islamic world, but that America in
essence had started this, second, this fourth conflict, global conflict by
the interventionism that it took place, essentially beginning in the 1980s.
and extending to the present day.
Berkovich's argument is that our desire to protect sources of
oil from the middle east led us to having large
scale intervention with heavily military presence in the
region as well as the desire, essentially, to shape the middle east.
in our own image as a, and as a place
for which we can, we could do business, especially the
importation of oil.
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and this is the forces that really drove us to the moment of 9/11.
Bekovich points to the, a latter stage of
the Carter administration as the beginning of this trend.
Earlier in his Presidency, President Carter
had developed an energy policy based
on the principles of conservation, believing
that it was in the United State's
best interest, and almost a moral imperative for us to conserve more,
to not be gluttons of oil that had to be imported,
principally, from the middle east. An area with so many unreliable regimes.
however, that was very much rejected by the American people.
it led to plummeting in Carter's, popularity.
And Carter
then, later in his presidency, moved to
move US foreign policy, towards actually protecting
those sources of oil that Americans wanted
to continue, and had become so dependent on.
and he announced what became the Carter Doctrine, which he said that an attempt by
an outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as
an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America.
And such an assault will be repelled
by any means necessary including military force.
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so, this doctrine was announced and acted
upon and then was passed on, essentially, to President Reagan.
And, Reagan increased the level of military interventionism in a number
of ways in the middle east. First as we noted before, he
intervened in the Lebanese civil war. sending marines
ostensibly as peacekeepers. and then actually withdrawing them
after the terrorist attacks on them. he responded
with military forces. We also mentioned to the West Berlin
discothèque bombings by Khadafi and then
in a series of incidents. Spanning from 1984 to
1988 President Regan essentially announced that US
Naval carriers would ensure the flow of oil coming
from Kuwait through the Persian Gulf. the Iran Iraq war
was using, attacking these sort, different sources of oil, whether they
came from Iran or Iraq, as part of their strategic efforts to weaken, the enemy.
and the United States, ultimately got involved in a number of
different skirmishes which came to be known, as the Tanker Wars.
but in the end many foreign vessels
were actually given permission to fly US flags and then an attack on
them, from any party was seen therefore as an attack on the United States.
So the US, this was a huge increase in US Naval presence in the Persian Gulf.
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Now, of course President Reagan gave way to
the first President Bush and in August 1990,
another cause for US intervention arose essentially Saddam Hussein's
armies invaded Kuwait which he believed was a historically a province of Iraq.
And should belong to it and, of course, giving him, wouldn't give him access to
huge additional sources of oil and, an immediate port from the Persian Gulf.
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the war began in the early part of 1991 with an aerial bombardment which
was quickly followed by a large scale land campaign.
And of course this was
a successful effort, Saddam's army was essentially destroyed, and the
United States had a free shot to Baghdad to essentially topple
Saddam but chose not to take that route.
nonetheless large amounts of troops remained in Saudi Arabia.
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and, Of course, this military action was seen as
a huge triumph for, the assertion of American power.
a personal triumph for President Bush, who is seen, surrounded here by, troops.
in the desert in Saudi Arabia.
I want to tell you just a quick story about this photo.
I have used this photo many times in some ways as an example
of US triumphalism and the, the US forces being in the Middle East and feeling
that they were fulfilling their mission. And being successful.
In doing the research for this video, I learned that
this was actually before the war where the President came
to visit the troops in Thanksgiving and President Bush was
not raising his hand in triumph but was actually tossing
souvenirs and trinkets, Presidential tie clips, out
to, the soldiers. What a soldier going into combat was going
to do with a presidential tie clip is another question, but the
story of the photo still remains, that here is an American
President coming into the Middle East, where surrounded by large bases
of huge troops, in response to the first Gulf War.
And continuing this trend throughout the 1980s, and into
the 90s, of increasing larger and larger US military presence.
David SchanzerAssociate Professor of the Practice
