A First-Lens Analysis
George H.W.  Bush: Chief Diplomat

George Bush was not perceived as a strong leader when he became president. For eight years, he had served in the shadow of the popular Ronald Reagan, and many in the public regarded Bush as a competent but not compelling replacement. In fact, late-night television talk shows labeled Bush a "wimp" and lampooned his public speaking, which paled in comparison to the telegenic presentations of Reagan. So when the crisis in the Gulf began, few knew that their president would personally direct this campaign.

When he received word that Iraqi forces had crossed into Kuwait, Bush communicated personally with potential allies. In the first five days after the invasion, Bush personally telephoned international leaders on at least forty-eight occasions—from the White House, while in-flight aboard Air Force One (where he called King Hussein of Jordan and President Mubarak of Egypt on the first day of the crisis), and from Camp David. (Parmet, Herbert, George Bush: The Life of a Lone Star Yankee (New York: Scribner, 1997), p. 451.) Bush proved both capable of and confident with personal diplomacy.

Bush's first outside telephone call was to Thomas Pickering, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. He instructed Pickering that he wanted the United Nations to respond swiftly to the invasion. From the outset, Bush viewed the crisis not as a regional Arab-to-Arab dispute, but as something larger. Bush "was keenly aware that this would be the first post–Cold War test of the Security Council in crisis," (Bush, George H. and Brent Scrowcroft, A World Transformed (New York: Knopf, 1998), p. 303.) While most U.S. presidents had warily turned to the United Nations in an international crisis, Bush's immediate call to the United Nations paid dividends. On the day of the invasion, the U.N. Security Council passed resolution 660 by a 14–0 vote, demanding that Iraq withdraw from Kuwait. Significantly, the Soviet Union and China did not veto the resolution despite the fact that Iraq had been an ally and a recipient of Soviet military aid in the past. Bush's decision to involve the United Nations served as a foundation for his strategy of coercive diplomacy over the next five months. The fact that he had once served as U.N. ambassador meant that he understood both the institution's limits and strengths and was comfortable working through its diplomatic mechanisms.

Outside of the Middle East, Bush felt he understood the Chinese and had been developing a good relationship with Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev. A similarly positive personal relationship had developed between Secretary of State James Baker, and Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze. On 2 August 1990, Bush's command of foreign policy allowed him to  decide instantly that members of the U.N. Security Council could work together. He and his advisers were aware, however, that many of the foreign leaders to whom Bush turned were to require much diplomatic handling if their support was to be sustained. They understood, in particular regarding the Soviets, that these contacts "promised goodwill, but [they wondered] how far they would (or could) go with us."(Bush, George H. and Brent Scrowcroft, A World Transformed (New York: Knopf, 1998), p. 304.)

The Personal Connection

In the initial flurry of diplomatic activity, Bush's most important contact was not with the United Nations but with the Saudi Royal family. If the United States was going to lead an effort to reverse the invasion, it would need support from an Arab country. Saudi Arabia was the logical choice for a number of reasons: it had long-standing relations with the United States, it now faced Iraqi forces on its border, and it was the key oil-producing state in OPEC. Saudi Arabia was the regional political, military, and economic counterweight to Iraq.

Interestingly, Bush's initial thoughts concerned Saudi resolve. Bush and his advisers quickly settled on the need to reverse Iraqi aggression principally from a regional balance-of-power perspective. They recognized that permanent Iraqi occupation of Kuwait would not only increase Iraq's economic base and, thus, eventual military power, but would provide Iraq with increased leverage over the entire region. From the U.S. perspective, Iraqi troops on the border with Saudi Arabia could be used by Saddam Hussein to shape Saudi economic and political policy in a manner detrimental to U.S. interests. Unless provided an alternative, members of the Bush administration thought that Saudi King Fahd would cut a deal with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein that would leave Kuwait in Iraqi hands so long as the Iraqi leader promised he would make no future demands on Saudi Arabia.

Bush telephoned King Fahd directly on the first day of the invasion and the U.S. leader insisted that Iraq had to withdraw. The king sounded uneasy about the invasion and agreed that ultimately Iraq would have to pull out. However, when Bush offered to send a squadron of F-15 fighter aircraft as a sign of US support, King Fahd hesitated and asked Bush for further discussions. Bush was afraid that the Saudis would not be willing to resist. In Bush's words, the king's hesitation "rang alarm bells in my head." (Bush, George H., and Brent Scrowcroft, A World Transformed (New York: Knopf, 1998), p. 321.)

As it turned out, much of King Fahd's hesitation was based on their interpretation of past U.S. actions. In 1979, when the Shah of Iran was overthrown, the United States offered Saudi Arabia a squadron of F-15s as a sign of support. The monarchy accepted the U.S. offer immediately. When the planes were already in flight, the Saudis, who learned publicly that the aircraft were unarmed, felt betrayed. The fact that Bush, following military plans, made the same offer to Fahd probably set off alarm bells for the Saudi monarch as well. The king also had an underlying concern about U.S. staying power in the region. In the early 1980s, during the Reagan administration, U.S. marines were sent to Beirut, Lebanon to stabilize the country but were withdrawn after a terrorist attack against the marines. These two concerns shaped the Saudi monarch's initial hesitancy.

In the early hours of the invasion, the Americans were willing to defend Saudi Arabia and the Saudis were firm in their desire to resist Iraq, both were hesitant about the other. In this instance, personal relations between leaders mattered greatly as First-Lens analysis predicts. Bush and Fahd had known each other for years. This personal connection allowed them to work around advisors who were suspicious of each country's intentions and the real concerns over past history that raised questions about reliability. In the initial moments after the invasion, Saudi Arabia and the United States had to essentially trust each other; something most countries are hesitant to do.  The fact that the leaders knew each other well was critical to the decision to trust each other and make a dramatic step together to resist the Iraqi invasion as explicit military allies. When Bush was director of the CIA, Fahd was the head of Saudi Arabian intelligence.

The king pointed this out to Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney and General Norman Schwarzkopf on 6 August 1990 during a meeting at which the Americans showed the king satellite reconnaissance revealing an Iraqi build-up on the Saudi border and detailed U.S. plans to defend the kingdom. Cheney later realized that the king had already decided to cooperate with the United States, but had set the meeting to convince important Saudi princes to side with the Americans. At one point, Prince Abdallah, who had been reluctant to forge a Saudi-American military coalition, told the King in Arabic to consider the fact that there was still a Kuwait despite the invasion, implying that a deal could be struck with Saddam Hussein. In front of Cheney and Schwarzkopf, the king quickly rebutted the Abdullah's suggestion. The king noted that while the Kuwait royal family and elite were still alive, they were all "living in our hotel rooms." (Woodward, Bob, The Commanders (New York: Pocket Books, 1991), p. 254.) The king asked rhetorically who he would turn to if Saddam went back on a deal not to attack the Saudi kingdom. "Who'll put us up then?" asked Fahd. (Parmet, Herbert, George Bush: The Life of a Lone Star Yankee (New York: Scribner, 1997), p. 459). After this exchange, the king turned to Cheney and agreed to accept U.S. troops.

This was an astounding decision for an Arab leader because of Muslim solidarity and distaste for U.S. support of Israel. Would the Saudis have accepted an offer of support from a different U.S. president? It is difficult to know, but clearly some important Saudi princes, such as the Prince Abdullah, had doubts. In the end, Fahd had a long experience with Bush and trusted the U.S. leader. The king's trust was bolstered by the knowledge that Bush understood the intricacies of oil politics. The Saudi King was not only dealing with someone he knew, but with someone whose background in the oil business made him acutely aware of the nuances behind this crisis and oil. As discussed in the Second-Lens analysis section, Bush did not see the crisis as directly related to the price of oil, but rather as a regional balance-of-power crisis in which the control of oil was critical to how power was distributed across the region. His grasp of the politics of oil allowed him to move beyond a superficial focus on oil prices. The Iraqi invasion posed a long-term strategic, rather than short-term economic threat to U.S. and Saudi interests. Fahd had to be comfortable with Bush's broader understanding.

A First-Lens perspective suggests that such trust, rare in international politics, affected the thinking of both men and may have shaped the Saudi monarch's crucial first decisions. Although the decision to deploy and accept troops in Saudi Arabia did not guarantee war would ensue, it was a necessary condition.

Prior to August 1990, most Americans did not recognize Bush's ability to take charge of diplomacy during a crisis. Even fewer would have predicted that he would prove steadfast in leading an international coalition to war. But it was a crisis that fit well with his former government training and his views of the world, which he began to form during the patriotic lessons he learned during World War II and developed through a series of government posts that relied on personal interactions.

Having worked to engage the support of world leaders, the United Nations, and key regional players, why did Bush adopt a coercive strategy that hinged on military force to reverse Iraq's attack?