Hubris Without Idealism

During the Gulf War, in February 1991, George H. W. Bush called on the Iraqi people to “take matters into their own hands to force Saddam Hussein, the dictator, to step aside.” Coalition aircraft dropped leaflets urging Iraqi civilians and troops to rise up. But when the country’s oppressed Shia and Kurdish populations followed that exhortation, Hussein’s surviving forces crushed them, killing tens of thousands of people, while the United States military stood by and did nothing.