The dominant US performance in the Persian Gulf War was one of the shining moments of recent American foreign policy. The nation could again be proud of a military operation, and we were relieved to at last have "the Vietnam monkey off our backs," in the words of George Bush. Bruce Jentleson But even the victory in the gulf may not have been without blemishes, as Bruce Jentleson argues in With Friends Like These: Reagan, Bush and Saddam, 1982-1990, published by W. W. Norton. Jentleson, professor of political science at UC Davis and onetime foreign policy advisor to Al Gore, was the 1993-1994 special assistant to the director of the Policy Planning Staff at the State Department. Despite these impressive credentials, he seems unable in this case to come up with a title which reflects the contents of the book--while the title suggests that the book will be about people, specifically Reagan, Bush and Saddam, only Saddam is directly discussed much at all. That is not to say that the book is uninteresting, for Jentleson provides a fascinating account of the global shadow network of front companies, but it is misleading. Beyond this, the book's greatest disappointment is that the analysis chapters fail to present anything earth shattering. A better title for the book might have been With Friends Like These: US Bureaucracies, Multinational Corporations and Saddam: 1982-1990, for Jentleson's story is a saga of administrations, banks and dual-use technologies rather than personalities. This is exemplified in National Security Directive 26 (NSD-26) a committee document which encapsulated the pre-Kuwait US strategy of rapprochement with Iraq. Bush's personal contribution may not have gone much beyond a signature, while lobbying by corporate forces during the document's drafting was intense. Jentleson provides little insight into President Bush's thinking beyond listing a couple of sound bites most readers may already be familiar with. An example is Bush's claim that the purpose of Iraqi appeasement was to bring Saddam "into the family of nations." Jentleson makes a half-hearted attempt to criticize Bush's failed "rolodex" diplomacy, which relied too much on personal relations. But even this is unconvincing, as Bush's "personal message" to Saddam was drafted by a committee and actually involved the president very little. Reagan's presence is even more infrequent. Despite Reagan's title billing, he is mentioned so rarely that we are left wondering if Reagan even had anything to say about Iraq. While it is clear that the Reagan administration developed an Iraq policy, it is not clear what Reagan himself had to do with it. And by the second half of the book, Jentleson abandons Reagan and Bush, as well as the Reagan administration and the Bush administration, and begins referring simply to "Reagan-Bush." Just what kind of imaginary monster is a "Reagan-Bush"? Certainly not one that ever actually existed. While a Reagan-Bush may more than a match for the Jabberwocky, such a creature never made decisions in the Oval Office. The exception to Jentleson's aversion to personalities is Saddam, who provides all the color we would expect from a maniacal dictator. From his 1959 role as hit man in the Ba'athist assassination attempt on General Qassim to his threat to "make the fire eat half of Israel," Saddam's belligerent personality consistently comes across. Whether describing Saddam's planned Kuwaiti insult at Jiddah or his obsession with building an "Arab Bomb," Jentleson gives us enough Saddam to justify his presence in the title. Although Jentleson has certainly not presented any insights into the inner workings of Saddam's mind, he at least gives us a person to deal with, rather than yet another faceless administration. One of Saddam's more unusual plans was his dream for a "Super-Gun" capable of reaching deep into Iran and Israel, promised by dissident artillery genius Gerald Bull. Under Bull's guidance, Iraq made considerable progress on the Super-Gun thanks to the import of American Silicon Graphics IRIS Super 380 computers for design. In countless similar incidents, as Jentleson makes clear, Iraq armed for war largely through weapons purchases from western companies. Jentleson's real focus, rather than on individuals, is on the ironic process through which the United States allowed Iraq to purchase weapons and the means to manufacture weapons and then decided that this was a threat. The heart of Jentleson's story is dual-use technology, ostensibly civilian equipment used for military purposes at sites like Sa'ad 16 by the Ministry of Industrial and Military Industrialization (MIMI). A typical case, repeated again and again in varying forms, is that of New-Jersey based Consarc Corporation's sale of military-grade furnaces to Iraq. Worried that these furnaces could be used to fashion components for nuclear weapons, Consarc reported themselves to the US, but were allowed to go through with the sale. The Commerce department even said that they did not need a license to export the furnaces. Sometimes secretly, sometimes blatantly, Iraq was able to acquire a formidable arsenal. The keystone of this global shadow network was Matrix-Churchill, (120) a British machining company Iraq secretly owned. When British intelligence questioned this, other officials in the Trade Ministry argued that the commercial value was too high to lose, so the British did nothing. Saddam's ability to amass an arsenal, facilitated by military-industrial complex fiscal self-interest and front companies, is the major root of the war to Jentleson. The discussion of the extremely convoluted web of companies and nations could easily deteriorate into an incomprehensible mush. To his credit, Jentleson is able to retain a clear structure, and as a result the book is very readable and neatly arranged. Each of the six chapters is broken into easily digestible blocks usually less than ten pages and end-of-chapter summaries provide extra convenience. Furthermore, Jentleson's generally successful attempt to separate fact from analysis also contributes to the readability of the book. While the book certainly has its flaws, organization is not one of them. After spending the first four chapters detailing the events leading up to the Gulf War and arguing that it was in many respects a failure, Jentleson uses the remaining two chapters to develop a policy prescription for the rogue-state scenario. Unfortunately, this "Analysis and Lessons" section flops, rehashing a few simple ideas and attempting to dress up platitudes as respectable theories. One of the points Jentleson is particularly fond of beating into the ground is that the statement, "The enemy of my enemy is my friend," is false. This is fine to an extent, but the fact that the phrase eventually evolves into the "enemy-enemy-friend calculus" reflects that Jentleson has spent far too many pages describing this relatively simple idea. This is all the more reprehensible considering that he has also argued that interest groups worried about selling wheat and guns, not policymakers stressing "enemy-enemy-friend," were the real force behind US-Iraqi "friendship." As far as enemy-enemy-friend goes, Jentleson argues the US failed in its "mixed strategy" because it did not maintain reciprocity, proportionality and deterrent credibility. Otherwise, a triangular strategy in which a weaker power like Saddam is able to play on two other side's fears (US vs. Soviet Union or US vs. Iran) is possible. How can such situations be avoided? Jentleson presents his plan to help future leaders better "conceptualize strategies" for "rogue states." Hopefully these future leaders will have a dictionary on hand. As admirable as Jentleson's goal is, his prescriptions seem suspiciously like blather. For instance: There must be a greater self-consciousness about the need to subject premises to analysis and to be open to even (or, arguably, especially) dissonant information. The key is for policymakers to maintain a stronger sense of how their premises can distort their decision-making and make what could have been seen with foresight knowable only in hindsight. Let us take a moment to examine Jentleson's logical contortions. First, Policymakers make assumptions. Next, These assumptions lead to decisions which are sometimes wrong. Third, in order to avoid making wrong decisions, policymakers need only be more open-minded and avoid incorrect assumptions while accepting correct ones. While this is true enough, it is also not helpful at all, for the means by which policymakers should distinguish incorrect assumptions from correct ones remains a mystery. Jentleson also hearkens back to George Kennan by asking whether the Gulf War was a failure in "concepts" or "execution." But after having the perspicacity to ask such a question, Jentleson safely fudges by simply saying it was both. Although we needn't slip into false-dichotomy thinking, surely one reason was more consequential than the other. Unfortunately, Jentleson stays on the fence. With Friends Like These effectively organizes the events and historical context for the origins of the Gulf War. It also succeeds in arguing that despite the shine CNN footage of American "smart bombs" put on the war, it was not a triumph, but a solution to a problem caused by earlier US mistakes. What Jentleson has failed to do, however, is to provide an acceptable solution for preventing rogue-state conflicts in the future. Despite Jentleson's efforts, no amount of terminology will be enough to save the world. Back to Cry Havoc! #42 Table of Contents Back to Cry Havoc! List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 2003 by David W. Tschanz. This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com