President Donald Trump has proven again and again to have mastered strategic and tactical surprise in conflict, and to depend upon the military professionals advising him. Now, however, he faces a decision on when to end the battle with the Islamic Republic of Iran or whatever regime follows its collapse.
In making that decision, the events of 35 years ago should figure in his calculation.
The American-led international coalition that assembled to drive Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi troops from Kuwait began that war with a massive aerial and naval bombardment of Saddam’s forces in Kuwait and some targets in Iraq on January 17, 1991. The first phase of the first Gulf War lasted five weeks. The second phase, a ground invasion of Kuwait, began on February 24, 1991, and famously (or infamously) concluded after 100 hours.
Serious military professionals have long debated the decision by then President George H.W. Bush, Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell to end military operations when they did. A huge tactical success had been achieved and the strategic benefit of such an overwhelming display of force, and almost certainly some Americans are alive today who would not have survived an extended campaign to depose Saddam Hussein 35 years ago.
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The “Marsh Arabs” of Iraq, the Shi’a Muslim population that inhabited the marshlands around the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in the southern part of the country still controlled by Saddam after the 100-hours campaign, attempted to wrest their freedom from Saddam’s remaining forces. A 1992 Human Rights Watch report concluded: “In their attempt to retake cities, and after consolidating control, loyalist forces killed thousands of unarmed civilians by firing indiscriminately into residential areas; executing young people on the streets, in homes and in hospitals; rounding up suspects especially young men, during house-to-house searches, and arresting them without charge or shooting them en masse; and using helicopters to attack unarmed civilians as they fled the cities”
Add to that massacre another decade of atrocities by Saddam against his people that did not end until the second President Bush, this time with Dick Cheney as the vice president and Colin Powell as secretary of state, ordered the military to invade Iraq and topple the dictator. In the dozen years between the two wars came the expense and danger of the two “no-fly zones” which the United Nations authorized and the U.S. enforced.
A friendly fire incident — U.S. F-15s mistakenly shot down two American Black Hawk helicopters with the loss of 26 military and civilian lives.
The extended deployment of American forces in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is also believed to have led to the terrorist attack on Khobar Towers on June 25, 1996, a housing complex in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. 19 Airmen were killed and more than 400 U.S. and international military members and civilians were injured in the attack, which has been attributed to either or both al Qaeda and the Islamic Republic of Iran. The towers were home to troops and civilians supporting Operation Southern Watch, the no-fly zone operation in Southern Iraq.
Counter-factuals are not useful for debate. — American officials make the most difficult decisions with limited information, some of which we still don’t know — but the actual history that followed the 100 hours of war can inform the decisions ahead of President Trump.
Had the first Gulf War not been halted at the arbitrary elapse of 100 hours, but instead extended into a ground campaign in Iraq to depose Saddam Hussein in 1991, a completely different history of the Middle East would have followed, one perhaps free of the Iranian nuclear and missile programs which have precipitated this battle. But the coalition assembled by the first President Bush might have frayed and fallen apart. The American casualties of that war would have exceeded the 300 killed and 450 wounded. Again, the debate about “What might have happened” is a ridiculous one to conduct. We cannot know.
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But President Trump and his advisors can, and no doubt are, reflecting that with the Islamic Republic on its back, without much in the way of defenses, but still with striking power, the United States may want to persevere in the ongoing battle until a new set of rulers free of the medieval theological motivations of the now dead Ayatollah Khamenei are in place.
It is not for civilians to draw up war plans, but presidents ought to study the decisions of their predecessors. A premature end to this battle will almost certainly lead to another one, perhaps without the advantage that the tactical surprise of this weekend’s attack brought us. We can fairly guess that because this regime refused to stop its nuclear program, its missile program and its export of terrorism after President Trump ordered Qassem Soleimani killed in January 2020, and again after Operation Midnight Hammer obliterated the nuclear weapons program of the Islamic Republic. Instead, the fanatics atop this barbarous regime began to rebuild their killing capabilities and displayed their true nature with the stunning massacre of more than 35,000 of its own citizens in January. This regime is incapable of changing. The regime must be changed.
Persevere President Trump. Americans have been dying at the hands of this wicked regime since it came to power in 1979. More have died this week. Do not let it survive to kill again.
Hugh Hewitt is a Fox News contributor and host of “The Hugh Hewitt Show” heard weekday afternoons from 3 PM to 6 PM ET on the Salem Radio Network, and simulcast on Salem News Channel. Hugh drives Americans home on the East Coast and to lunch on the West Coast on over 400 affiliates nationwide, and on all the streaming platforms where SNC can be seen. He is a frequent guest on the Fox News Channel’s news roundtable, hosted by Bret Baier weekdays at 6pm ET. A son of Ohio and a graduate of Harvard College and the University of Michigan Law School, Hewitt has been a Professor of Law at Chapman University’s Fowler School of Law since 1996 where he teaches Constitutional Law. Hewitt launched his eponymous radio show from Los Angeles in 1990. Hewitt has frequently appeared on every major national news television network, hosted television shows for PBS and MSNBC, written for every major American paper, has authored a dozen books and moderated a score of Republican candidate debates, most recently the November 2023 Republican presidential debate in Miami and four Republican presidential debates in the 2015-16 cycle. Hewitt focuses his radio show and his column on the Constitution, national security, American politics and the Cleveland Browns and Guardians. Hewitt has interviewed tens of thousands of guests from Democrats Hillary Clinton and John Kerry to Republican Presidents George W. Bush and Donald Trump over his 40 years in broadcasting. This column previews the lead story that will drive his radio/ TV show today.
