converging on Bush's personal psychological structures were greatly magnified not just by the
Panama adventure and the Gulf war, but also by the crisis of the Anglo-American financialinterests, by the threat posed to Anglo-American plans by German reunification, by the thorny (^)
problems of preparing his own re-election, and by the foundering of his condominium partners in
the Kremlin. As a result of this surfeit of tensions, Bush's personality entered into a process of
disintegration. The whining accents of the wimp, so familiar to Bush-watchers of years past, were
now increasingly supplanted by the hiss of frenetic spleen.
The successor personality which emerged from this upheaval differed in several important respects
from the George Bush who had sought and occupied the vice-presidency. The George Bush who
emerged in late 1990 after the dust had settled was far less restrained than the man who had
languished in Reagan's shadow. The hyperthyroid "presidential" persona of Bush was equippedwith little self-control, and rather featured a series of compulsive, quasi-psychotic episodes
exhibited in the public glare of the television lights. These were typically rage-induced outbursts of
verbal abuse and threats made in the context of international crises, first against Noriega and later
against Iraqi president Saddam Hussein.
Some might argue that the public rage fits that became increasingly frequent during 1989-90 were
calculated and scripted performances, calibrated and staged according to the methods of mind war
for the express purpose of intimidating foreign adversaries and, not least of all, the American
population itself. Bush's apprenticeship with Kissinger would have taught him the techniques we
have seen Kissinger employ in his secret communications with Moscow during the Indo-Pakistaniwar of 1970: Kissinger makes clear that an integral part of his crisis management style is the studied (^)
attempt to convince his adversary that the latter is dealing with a madman who will not shun any
expedient, no matter how irrational, in order to prevail. But with the Bush of 1990 we are far
beyond such calculating histrionics. There were still traces of method in George Bush's madness,
but the central factor was now the madness itself.
The thesis of this chapter is that while it is clear that the Gulf war was a deliberate and calculated
provocation by the Anglo-American oligarchical and financier elite, the mental instability and
psychological disintegration of George Bush was an indispensable ingredient in implementing the
actions which the oligarchs and bankers desired. Without a George Bush who was increasingly noncompos mentis, the imperialist grand design for the destruction of the leading Arab state and the
intimidation of the third world might have remained on the shelf. Especially since the Bay of Pigs
and the Vietnam debacle, American presidents have seen excellent reasons to mistrust their advisers
when the latter came bearing plans for military adventures overseas. The destruction of the once
powerful Lyndon B. Jpresident who wants to have a political future must be very reticent before he attempts to write aohnson, in particular, has stood as an eloquent warning to his successors that a
new page in the martial exploits of imperialism. Eisenhower's repudiation of the Anglo-French Suez
invasion of 1956 can serve to remind us that even a relatively weak US president may find reasons
not to leap into the vanguard of the latest hare-brained scheme to come out of the London clubs.
The difficulty of orcbureaucratic, military, and financier factions of the US establishment are not at all convinced thathestrating a "splendid little war" is all the more evident when the various (^)
the project is a winner or even worthwhile, as the pro-sanctions, wait and see stance of many
Democratic members of the House and Senate indicates. The subjectivity of George Bush is
therefore a vital link in the chain of any explanation of why the war happened, and that subjectivity
centers an increasingly desperate, aggravated, infantile id, tormented by the fires of a raging thyroidstorm.
Bush's new desire to strut and posture as a madman on the world stage, as contrasted with his earlier
devotion to secret, behind-the-scenes iniquity has certain parallels in Suetonius's portrait of the
Emperor Nero. Before Nero had fully consolidated his hold on power, he cultivated outward and