To revisit the Desert Storm before and after in a way that might shed a bit of light on the very strange non-endgame after the war proper was over:
I was employed 1988-1997 by one of the Big Ten US defense contractors, although it was not until 1993 that I worked on anything that was specific related to the Middle East (before that it was mostly SDI) or informed by the Desert Storm experience (particularly the Scud hunt, but also working on low profile defenses for the US military presence in Bahrain).
Dual containment (Iraq and Iran) was a really big thing then; a lot of the bipartisan silliness 1992-2001 was based on wishful thinking that somehow a Hafez al-Assad type would manage to knock over Hussein and the top level of his apparat, with Iraqi Sunnis playing the part of Alawites and Iraq Shia playing the part of Syrian Sunnis.
To revisit the Desert Storm before and after in a way that might shed a bit of light on the very strange non-endgame after the war proper was over:
I was employed 1988-1997 by one of the Big Ten US defense contractors, although it was not until 1993 that I worked on anything that was specific related to the Middle East (before that it was mostly SDI) or informed by the Desert Storm experience (particularly the Scud hunt, but also working on low profile defenses for the US military presence in Bahrain).
Dual containment (Iraq and Iran) was a really big thing then; a lot of the bipartisan silliness 1992-2001 was based on wishful thinking that somehow a Hafez al-Assad type would manage to knock over Hussein and the top level of his apparat, with Iraqi Sunnis playing the part of Alawites and Iraq Shia playing the part of Syrian Sunnis.
Sensible piece.