The Bush regime's contributions to the orchestration of the Gulf crisis of 1990-91 windispensable. First there was a campaign of tough talking by Bush and Baker, designed to goad theere many and (^)
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 opposJordan and the Gaza Strip, but also in East Jerusalem. A few days before that, Baker had suggestede Israeli settlements not only on the West Bank of the
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. Bush's
mention of East Jerusalem had toughened that line. [fn 26] Baker had added some tough talk of his
own when he had told a Congrepeace, they had only to call the White House switchboard, whose number he proceeded to give. Butssional committee that if and when the Israeli government wanted (^)
on June 20, Bush suspended the US dialogue with the PLO which he had caused to be started
during December, 1988. The pretext was a staged terror incident at an Israeli beach.
July, 1990 wOver the July Fourth weekend, Bush went to Kennebunkportas full of the hyperkinetic travel and diplomacy which has become George's trademark. to prepare for the London NATO
summit and the successive Houston summit of the seven leading industrial nations. There is
evidence that he was already in the full flush of the manic phase, and that the "read my lips" press
conference and the Neil Bush affair had produced massive psychic carnage. According to a press
account, Bush passed the time in Kennebunkport
with his usual breakneck round of throwing horseshoes, casting fishing lures, bashing golf balls,
and careening across the waves in his speedboat. Instead of arriving in London a day before the
meeting began, Mr. Bush squeezed in one more golf game on Wednesday morning, and left that
night. But here, it seemed that the bottomless well of energy had a bottom after all. Mr. Bush got offAir Force One looking tired, eyes puffy and his stride less spry than the "spring colt" to which he
always compares himself.
During the London summit, Bush appears to have been unusually irritable. One small crisis came
when he found hiscrambled to bring his car around. Busmself waiting for his limousine in front of Lancaster House while his aidesh "craned his neck around, pursed his lips, stuck his hands in (^)
his pockets, and glared at the nearest aide until his car finally appeared." [fn 27]
The secret agenda at this summit was dominated by the NATO out of area deployments,
transforming the alliance into the white man's vengeful knout against the third world. According toa senior NATO consultant, the Lancaster House summit focussed on "increasing tension and re-
armament in a number of countries, in North Africa, the Middle East including Palestine, and Asia
through, increasingly, to Southeast Asia. There are new dangers from new directions. We are
shifting from an exclusive focus on the east-west conflict, to a situation of risk coming eventually or
potentially from all directions." The talk in London in that July was about a possible new MiddleEast war, which "would tend to escalate horizontally and vertically. A real conflict in the Levant
would extend from the Turkish border to the Suez canal. It would involve the neighbors of the main
combatants. The whole thing would be in a state of flux, because the great powers couldn't afford
just to sit there." In order to avoid public relations problems for the continental European
governments, who still had qualms about their domestic public opinion, these debates were notfeatured in the final communique, which complacently proclaimed the end of the Cold War and (^)
invited Gorbachov to come and visit NATO headquarters to make a speech. [fn 28]
After hob-nobbing with Thatcher, Queen Elizabeth II, and other members of the royal family, Bush
flew to Houston to assume the role of host of the Group of 7 yearly economic summit. At this
frankie
(Frankie)
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