Columnist Blasts Gulf Policy

President Bush's plans for a "new world order" are not very new and not very promising, said a New York Times foreign affairs columnist Wednesday in a speech at the Kennedy School of Government.

Leslie H. Gelb '64, delivering the tenth annual Joe Alex Morris Jr. Memorial lecture, criticized both the Bush administration's initial responses to the Gulf crisis as well as its post-war strategy.

"George Bush's war policy, when you look at it, turns out to be shakier and more questionable than its results," Gelb told the audience of about 150. "Further, his post-war policy has revealed itself as a total confusion of aims."

Gelb also labeled Bush's pre-war Middle-East policy as "indifferent and ignorant," saying that in allowing for the build-up of the Iraqi military capability, the administration repeated the policy errors that led to the rise of Manuel Noriega in Panama.

"They came up with the theory that if we only stayed close to him, nurtured him, we will turn him into a model," Gelb said, "but you will be hard put to show me, however, an instance of this where a man of such truly bad character turned out to be a good guy through American nurturing."

Gelb added that in the process of nurturing Hussein, the administration refused to keep his military buildup in check.

Supported Military Action

"The Bush administration became so committed to the elegance of their own logic that they even went out of their way and slapped down efforts to at least squeeze Saddam Hussein, to test whether he had larger, more flattering ambitions," he said.

Gelb said, however, that he did support Bush's decision to use military power in addition to economic sanctions against Iraq in January. Sanctions alone would have significantly delayed Iraq's withdrawal from Kuwait and possibly broken the allied coalition, he said.

Gelb said that the U.S. strategy, which included the coalition of Arab and other states, depended on much luck as well as the stupidity of Saddam Hussein.

"What made the Persian Gulf War a military success was not the brilliance of the strategy, but the personal skills and character of the people who implemented it," Gelb said.

Gelb also voiced concerns that the Bush administration's post-war policy was not very well-formulated.

"Bush was so focused on winning," Gelb said. "It's very clear that he gave very little thought to any post-war policy."

But, he added, "somehow Bush hopes that all of this will vanish when his new world order takes hold."

Gelb said that in order to achieve any new order, there must be a change in priorities in foreign policy. He said he believed the United States should not only focus on its old enemy, Iraq, but also keep watch over the activities of Syria and Israel.

Gelb concluded that the United States should adopt a greater domestic focus than in the past, cautioning the audience that victories in foreign policy are often escapes for leaders from domestic troubles.