Power, Lost and Found: America At Century’s End 555dered. At that point, rather than marching on to Baghdad to overthrow the
government, the allies stopped. In the south, the Shiite, thinking the U.S.
would support them, began an uprising to overthrow Saddam, but with the
American halt, they were left exposed and Saddam’s troops slaughtered tens
of thousands of them. The First Gulf War was over, but the impact and con-
sequences would not go away.
The Terror Era
While the U.S. claimed that the defeat of Iraq eliminated a threat in the
Middle East, a Rogue State, it did not bring stability to the region. Indeed,
the period since 1991 has seen constant crises throughout that part of the
world. U.S. support of Israel continued to infuriate the Arab world, especially
as billions of dollars of American aid flowed to a country that was attacking
Palestinians and refusing to return their land. At the same time, the U.S. insti-
tuted a series of sanctions against Iraq–penalties for its invasion of Kuwait and
role in the Gulf War–that included economic embargoes covering all trade
with and investment in Saddam’s country. The key purpose of the sanctions
was to force Iraq to pay reparations–to pay for rebuilding Kuwait–and to pre-
vent them from developing WMDs, which Saddam denied having and which
we now know for certain he did not possess. The sanctions were the most
comprehensive and harshest ever imposed and even included certain medical
supplies and foodstuffs. Consequently, Iraqi hospitals could not get basic good
like anti-cancer drugs, x-ray machines, and certain medicines–on the theory
that they might have a military application–nor could they get the necessary
chemicals and tools to clean up the water supply. Within a decade, the cost of
the sanctions was huge, with human rights groups estimating that a million
Iraqis may have died because of the lack of medicine, food, and clean water.
The sanctions, however, did not get rid of Saddam, and in fact may have made
it easier for him to stay in power because he could blame the U.S. for Iraq’s
problems.
During the Clinton presidency, the hawkish foreign policies continued.
Clinton invaded Somalia in 1993 and Haiti in 1994 to protect what he per-
ceived as U.S. interests. He conducted massive bombing campaigns during a
Balkans War in the 1990s, attacking Bosnia in 1995 and Serbia in 1999.
During the height of the Lewinsky scandal, to distract attention away from his