Part of something larger than ourselves: George H.W. Bush and the rhetoric of the first U.S. war in the Persian Gulf

摘要

During Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm, George H.W. Bush achievedthe rhetorical success that had escaped his prior speaking endeavors. If theaforementioned assessments regarded Bush?s Gulf War rhetoric as a rhetorical triumph,in light of prior damning criticism of his rhetorical abilities, then an explanation for thattriumph is in order. Bush?s rhetoric differed from his Presidential predecessors by virtueof two factors. First, as the first U.S. president of the Post-Cold War era, Bush?s rhetoricfaced different rhetorical constraints than those faced by his predecessors, as he nolonger had the narrative framework of the Cold War to explain U.S. foreign policyaction. Second, Bush rhetorically juxtaposed American exceptionalism and realismwithin his rhetoric itself. This differed from the rhetoric of his immediate predecessor,Ronald Reagan, whose rhetoric employed American exceptionalism without reference torealism, although that rhetoric was strategically geared toward achieving realist foreignpolicy ends. Bush?s success was also considerable in that he faced significant rhetoricalconstraints created or exacerbated by Reagan. Reagan?s reputation as the ?Great Communicator,? contrasted with Bush?s less-than-stellar reputation as an orator, makesBush?s rhetorical success particularly worth understanding.President George H.W. Bush relied on three particular arguments to facilitate aU.S. military victory during the 1991 Persian Gulf War. These arguments differedconsiderably from foreign policy arguments offered by the Reagan administration withrespect to the manner in which they addressed issues concerning the United Nations andthe Vietnam War. First, Bush promoted U.N. diplomacy as a subsidiary of U.S. foreignpolicy. For Bush, the U.N. served as a venue where world opinion could be galvanizedand action serving United States interests would not be constrained so much aslegitimized. Second, he compared and contrasted U.S. action in the Gulf to the VietnamWar. In doing so, he combined the moral urgency of prior foreign policy efforts with thehindsight necessary to avoid a repeat of the American experience in Vietnam. Third, inretrospectively assessing the Gulf War, Bush depicted the conflict as a discrete foreignpolicy event in which he narrowly defined victory. Bush defined victory as the removalof Iraqi forces from Kuwait, in an attempt to shape a historical consensus on thesignificance of U.S. action.