History is not just a ledger of events or bullet points in a text book—it’s a series of choices, each branching to possibilities realized or squandered.
In 1991, we stood at such a crossroads. We had Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi army shattered, his air force a shadow of itself, and his regime teetering. But we chose to stop, to declare victory without securing it.
Instead of pushing to Baghdad, removing Saddam, and forcing an unconditional surrender—broadcast to the Iraqi people as unmistakable proof of their tyrant’s defeat—we let the dictator remain. Worse, we left his power structure and brutal apparatus largely intact.
What followed was entirely predictable. Saddam crushed internal revolts by the Shia and Kurds, using helicopter gunships we had naively exempted from the ceasefire restrictions. He rebuilt his military, defied U.N. inspectors, plotted assassination attempts against former President George H. W. Bush, and continued to destabilize the region. We were left policing Iraq from the air, enforcing no-fly zones, while stationing U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia—a presence that Osama bin Laden cited as a principal grievance and recruiting tool for al-Qaeda.
What if we had finished the job in 1991? Imagine, instead, an unconditional Iraqi surrender, broadcast across the nation, with Saddam Hussein and his military generals escorted onto the deck of a U.S. aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf to sign his humiliation into history—much as the Japanese government did on board the USS Missouri on September 2, 1945. Iraq’s mechanized divisions obliterated. Its air force annihilated. Hussein’s Republican Guard destroyed. Saddam and his top brass hauled before an international tribunal for war crimes, including the gassing of Kurds and Iranians alike. That is how you end a war and deliver justice to war criminals — at the end of a rope. That is how you punctuate “Mission Accomplished.”
And then, as we did with Japan, the U.S. and its allies could have overseen Iraq’s political reconstruction. Instead of leaving a broken country to fester under tyranny, we could have drafted a new Iraqi Constitution that enshrined secular governance, robust human rights, and equality for women—much as we compelled post-war Japan to do.
Instead, the Iraqis got a constitution steeped in sectarianism and religious authority. Article 2 of the Iraqi Constitution declares Islam the official religion and a fundamental source of legislation, stating, “No law that contradicts the established provisions of Islam may be established.” And in Article 29, the family is framed in terms of religious and moral values, preserving a framework that limits women’s rights under the guise of protecting tradition.
By contrast, under U.S. guidance, Japan’s post-war constitution revolutionized civil rights. Women gained the right to vote within months of surrender. Article 14 of Japan’s constitution declares that “All of the people are equal under the law and there shall be no discrimination in political, economic or social relations because of race, creed, sex, social status or family origin.” Marriage was redefined based on mutual consent and equality between sexes. The constitution even entrenched a separation of religion from the state—something inconceivable in the Iraqi document.
In Japan, a devastated nation emerged as a democratic, pacifist ally. Iraq could have been the same, if only we had the foresight and resolve to see the mission through in 1991.
Instead, we imposed sanctions that starved civilians, enforced no-fly zones for a decade, and left a festering wound that Osama bin Laden exploited to recruit jihadists, citing the U.S. military presence in Saudi Arabia—a presence that need not have existed if Saddam had been toppled in 1991.
Our half-measure in 1991 led to the full catastrophe of 2003. Instead of just repeating mistakes we made brand new mistakes, such as disbanding the Iraqi army entirely instead of restructuring it, ensuring chaos filled the vacuum.
History isn’t kind to hesitation in the face of tyranny. Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was right when she said that aggressors must be not just stopped, but crushed so thoroughly that they can never rise again.
In 1991, we had that chance. Gen. Barry McCaffrey’s 24th Infantry Division (Mechanized) was in position to decimate the Republican Guard as they fled toward Basra. But after news footage of the so-called “Highway of Death” aired—showing the remnants of a retreating Iraqi army—Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Colin Powell urged President George H.W. Bush to halt the offensive because Washington feared the optics of winning too decisively.
And the world has been paying for that decision ever since.
We must learn the right lesson: never fight a war with the goal of returning to the status quo ante. If a war is worth waging, it must be worth winning—completely.
As Gen. Douglas MacArthur said prophetically during another war: “War’s very object is victory, not prolonged indecision.”
