I actually find 2 great ironies from 1998 that have emerged in today's politics.
First, the R's in congress lambasted Clinton over Desert Fox, as you've noted. However, in refining the case for war and the post-hoc rhetorical justification for the invasion and faulty intelligence, those same people who castigated Clinton in 1998 as being "diversionary" now rely on Desert Fox to show that see, everyone--even Democrats--thought that Saddam had WMD and are now a threat.
Second, those same folks are also looking back and asking why Clinton didn't do more like invade Afghanistan or put forth more robust strikes against Al Quaeda after the Embassy bombings, implying that he was weak on terrorism and is partly to blame for what followed. Yet, as you point out its that same camp that criticized those attacks as diversionary.
Imagine if Clinton had tried to go before the American people in January of 1999 to make the case to invade Afghanistan. What might people have said-- that he was wagging the dog to avoid the stigma of his impeachment? That it was a war with no facts? With hindsight, we now know that there was probably good reason to consider some sort of action back then, but at the time, it probably would have seemed quite out of place.
Missing from the list of diversionary wars is the Grenada invasion, which was undertaken in the immediate aftermath of the disasterous attack on the marines in Beruit.
The Grenada invasion is actually mentioned in "Wag the Dog." And the character who mentions it specifically references the Beirut bombing.
We talked about it in class, briefly.
Don't knock the Grenada invasion. It's stands proudly as our only military success since WW2.
Peter writes:
"Imagine if Clinton had tried to go before the American people in January of 1999 to make the case to invade Afghanistan. What might people have said-- that he was wagging the dog to avoid the stigma of his impeachment? That it was a war with no facts? With hindsight, we now know that there was probably good reason to consider some sort of action back then, but at the time, it probably would have seemed quite out of place."
Excellent observations, which demonstrate the hidden national security costs of Clinton's "personal" behavior. Perhaps if he had been able to keep his pants zipped in the Oval Office, Sept. 11th might have been just another day. . . .
David, that's just backwards. The correct counterfactual is: "imagine if the Republican party hadn't been trying to mount a constitutional coup over sexual infidelity." Clinton's misbehavior didn't create the distraction, the Republican party's attempt to overturn the 1996 election did.
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