The Wall Street Journal‘s editors are correctly worried about ending the current campaign in Iran too soon, before
Iran’s navy and its missile stocks, launchers, and productive capacity are destroyed. It would also leave most of the IRGC and its Basij enforcers intact.
But they drew the wrong analogy in explaining their concern.
…George HW Bush and the first Gulf War in 1990. The coalition campaign was so successful in pushing Saddam Hussein’s army from Kuwait that Bush and his advisers stopped too soon and spared most of his military.
No. Bush the Younger had gained non-Iraq Arab nations’ cooperation in the campaign by promising not to go for regime change in Iraq and to limit the campaign to driving the Iraqi forces out of Kuwait decisively enough that Saddam would be unable to reinvade for the foreseeable future. Saddam’s forces were driven out, decimated badly, and their remnants driven back to Baghdad. That Bush stopped at that point and largely withdrew coalition forces was simply a fulfillment of that commitment.
After that, southern Iraq’s Shiites revolted against Saddam’s remaining Sunni forces, largely with Bush’s encouragement and were massacred, but this is a separate Bush error, having nothing to do with leaving too soon or keeping his commitment to end the fight with Kuwait’s liberation.
In reality, no analogy is needed regarding too-optimistic and -early off-ramps for the current Iran campaign. This is amply demonstrated by Iran’s behavior in response.
Iran has fired missiles or drones on Israel, the UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and even Oman, which was negotiating with the US on Iran’s behalf. It also launched strikes, if fewer of them, on Jordan, Iraq, Syria, and…Cyprus.
Some of its targets in these countries are US bases, but the attacks were often directed at civilian targets, including hotels in Dubai. [I add, attacks directed against Israeli apartment complexes.]
This is reason enough to finish the job in Iran before announcing victory.
George H. W. Bush stated at the time that he was following the UN resolution, which only authorized the Iraqi expulsion from Kuwait. It did not authorize regime change in Baghdad, which was the price of building the coalition.
The Iraqi army leaders who negotiated the end of the fighting were astonished we allowed them to keep all their helicopters and use them over the Shatt-al-arab, ostensibly for disaster (from the fighting) relief. In fact, they were used to massacre to marsh Arabs, who pleased for help form the coalition, and received none. That lesson was not forgotten.