Was Kerry right to vote against Gulf War 1?

If you were told that going to war with Saddam Hussein in 1991 (to protect our way of life) would cost billions of dollars, kill 100,000 Iraqis, and yet leave Saddam in power, to counter which we would base troops in Saudi Arabia and impose draconian sanctions on millions of innocent Iraqis, which, in turn, could inflame the Arab and Muslim world, which could then lead to the rise in extremism which might result in a terrorist attack on American soil that could kill thousands of Americans and change our way of life, which then might compel us to go back to Iraq and spend $150 billion dollars, sacrifice thousands of American lives, kill a few more innocent Iraqis...

...would you have voted for the Gulf War?

In 1990, Saddam invaded and occupied Kuwait, promising to leave only if Israel relinquishes the "occupied territories". Senator John Kerry supported President George H. W. Bush's deployment of troops to the region to thwart a possible invasion of Saudi Arabia, but argued against a full-scale military assault on Iraq.

The country was not ready for the horrors of war, Kerry said. Diplomacy and sanctions could eventually compel Hussein to withdraw from Kuwait, but the US must also be ready to pursue “real peacemaking in the region,” he added, in reference to the Palestinian-Israeli crisis.

Was Kerry, in hindsight, right? Was it right to undertake Gulf War 1 or would his approach have cost fewer lives--Iraqi and American?

It is probably impossible to determine how the alternative would have panned out, but we do know that the US wound up using both deadly force and even deadlier diplomacy in response to Hussein's aggression.

Gulf War 1 killed over 100,000 Iraqis throught direct bombing and 270 Americans (in all 350 coalition), another million Iraqis through subsequent sanctions, and led to the rise of anti-American sentiment and Al Qaeda type extremism.

Military action secured Saddam's retreat from Kuwait, but not a peace treaty. Gulf War 1 never ended and the flawed Powell doctrine ("After victory, the military should leave the field of engagement, rather than staying around as peacekeepers") did not provide a roadmap for the day after. The 1991 ceasefire left Saddam in power, drawing a harsh rebuke from Kerry.

“This administration, having likened Saddam Hussein to Hitler, having committed troops in the war against him, actually sided with Hussein in the aftermath of the war. That is a disgraceful chapter.”

(Incidentally, the Powell doctrine was overruled by the Bush 43 administration, which chose to stay on as peacekeepers after removing Saddam in 2003.)

Following the military victory, the Bush administration turned to "diplomacy" under the guise of the hastily contrived containment strategy which was sustained by the Clinton team. The embargo, intended to contain Saddam, devastated Iraq's economy and triggered a widespread humanitarian crisis even as the Iraqi dictator tightened his grip.

While winning the gratitude of the royalty in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, American intervention contributed to the rise of Islamist extremism in the Middle East. The presence of American troops in Saudi Arabia angered conservative Muslims, many of whom were drawn to an Islamist known as Osama Bin Laden.

The war that began in 1990 entered a new chapter, thirteen years later, with the invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq by the Bush 43 administration. The Powell Doctrine was ignored this time around.

In 1990, Kerry chastised Bush 41 for the rush to war, a theme he would stick with for Round 2.

“There is a rush to war here. [Because we think our military force can overwhelm Iraq], we are willing to act . . . with more bravado than patience.”

He has also been consistent about the "truth standard" for war:

Since Vietnam, Kerry said [in 1990], the American public had been “reaching for a set of ruling principles about when we go to war,” with the consensus arriving that “we should go to war when our vital interests are at stake in a way that the majority of Americans have identified and are agreed upon, and when we have exhausted all peaceful alternatives.”

Were our vital interests at stake in 1990? Historians, economists, and captains of industry cannot agree what was at stake but the short answer is a "maybe": Saddam would have controlled both Iraqi and Kuwaiti oil, but not Saudi oil since his invasion of Kuwait was based on a territorial dispute. This was more a prestige issue--should the US allow itself to be dictated terms by a ruthless despot? Should Hussein, be allowed to get away with his brazen dare to Israel to withdraw from the territories?

In the event, Al Qaeda exploitedGulf War 1--the war revealed the hypocrisy of the Americans, Bin Laden would say. Americans will bomb an Arab land and take on a strong Arab leader when their oil interests are at stake; they will sacrifice their own lives to liberate corrupt oil-rich states, but then they turn a blind eye to the suffering of poor Muslims in Palestine, Kashmir, and Chechnya.

Bin Laden and Saddam won the PR war.

Did we exhaust "all peaceful alterntives" as Kerry suggested? No, but we still wound up turning to diplomacy--sanctions--for 12 years--because we knew we didn't have the stomach for an occupation or peace-keeping mission in Iraq in 1991.

Gulf War 1, while a predictably one-sided military affair, was a spectacular debacle for the US and the UN because, well, years later, we are still fighting it.

It is an even bigger debacle if you view Saddam's invasion of Kuwait in terms of a territorial dispute, in the same context as the Iran-Iraq war, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Syria's occupation of Lebanon, Kashmir, Tibet and a long list of other "occupations" to which some critics might hasten to add the American occupation of Iraq, although this last is, technically speaking, an issue of ideological real estate hegemony rather than physical land.

According to the Boston Globe, Kerry believed that the White House should "use back channels to Baghdad to signal a willingness to see Iraq’s claim on specific Kuwaiti territory adjudicated in an international forum."

This statement, when taken together with the his recommendation to pursue "real peacemaking in the region" has led Kerry's critics to argue that he meant to yield to Saddam on the matter of Israel-Palestine. But Kerry the alleged Israel sacrificer was bold to propose a more holistic approach to problem-solving in the Middle East.

When Saddam said that he would withdraw from Kuwait when Israel withdrew from the "Occupied Territories", he spoke to every Muslim out there who wishes to see a fair and just resolution to the crisis.

In the event, a "back channel" initiative on the Mideast conflict was launched and led to the Oslo Peace Accord which secured, at least on paper, an Israeli agreement to withdraw from the West Bank and Gaza and a Palestinian agreement to stop terrorism against Israel.

In opposing the use of force in 1990, Kerry asked his colleagues, "Are we ready for another generation of amputees, paraplegics, burn victims”?

As the United States continues to sacrifice treasure in an Iraq that posed no imminent threat, and as Iran and North Korea move closer to the bomb, Americans might do well to question the decision making abilities of the current President that have yielded just such a generation of Americans.