The passing of Dick Cheney on Tuesday is going to lead to a debate about his role in the current world order.
In this regard, Cheney played a pivotal part in the 1990s and early 2000s. Born in 1941, he served as US vice president under George H. W. Bush from 2001 to 2009.
He was also Secretary of Defense from 1989 to 1993. As such, Cheney played a key role in remaking the world during the period when the US was a global hegemon. He was central to the new world order that emerged in 1990 after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Cheney had prepared himself for this moment through his work in politics and as part of Republican administrations dating back to the Gerald Ford years. That being the case, Cheney was deeply familiar with the workings of the US government and its defense policy.
He had worked alongside Donald Rumsfeld, himself a secretary of defense in the 1970s, when both served in the Ford administration. Later, they would reunite during the Bush years.
It’s worth understanding Cheney through the lens of the rise of American power in the wake of the Vietnam War.
He was a prominent figure at a time when the US was rebuilding its image for itself and for the world. One might see this as being a part of the third phase of America’s rise to a global power in the 20th century. As such, Cheney is regarded as a pivotal figure at a crucial time.
The other phases were the era from presidents Teddy Roosevelt to Woodrow Wilson, and then the era of presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt to Dwight D. Eisenhower.
This matters very much to the Middle East because Cheney played a major part in the First Gulf War between 1990 and 1991 against Iraq’s president, Saddam Hussein, and then the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Cheney was cautious in 1991 about the prospects of the US invading Iraq. He wanted to wield US power to check Saddam’s aggression, but he also wanted to preserve the US partnership with Arab countries. He opposed the occupation of Baghdad. This, in some ways, sowed the seeds for the 2003 invasion because there was a sense that something was left undone.
Cheney recognized that Middle East represents long-term challenge after Soviet Union decline
Cheney understood that the Middle East would represent a long-term challenge. As the Soviet Union declined, many conflicts in the world changed their shape and nature. Some regions democratized, such as South Africa and Eastern Europe. Other areas fell into conflict and chaos.
Terrorist organizations then rose. In addition, Islamist groups that had promised a “third way” between the Soviets and the US, now set their sights on the US. Al-Qaeda and Iran were among the Islamists who held this view.
The 9/11 terrorist attacks gave the Bush administration a chance to remake the world. This was to be very different than the efforts Bush and Cheney made in 1991. The attacks had tipped over the playing board; all bets were off.
With a sense that the US could now use its power as a global hegemon, it launched the Global War on Terror. However, as some had predicted, this led to hubris and also disaster.
The war on terror did not go as planned. The invasion of Iraq did indeed become a kind of quagmire and left Americans wanting “out.” By the time the Obama administration came around, it was agreed that the US had to cease its “endless wars” and stop sacrificing blood and treasure abroad.
Donald Trump’s administration has taken that to heart. In fact, it is widely agreed among many Republicans and Democrats that the US should not be pursuing the kind of global hegemony it did in the 1990s and early 2000s.
Gone are the days of humanitarian intervention, such as in Somalia, and nation-building or being an international police force, as in the Balkan conflicts. In addition, gone are the days of COIN, the counterinsurgency concept. Instead, the US now fights narrowly tailored wars “by, with, and through” local partners.
Trump’s decision to try to end the Israel-Hamas War is an outgrowth of this. In some ways, therefore, the US policy today continues to sit in the shadow of Cheney’s role.
Cheney was not the uppermost person at the helm of US policy; he was just part of the team, although he was, nevertheless, a leading figure. Sometimes he came in for public criticism, which portrayed him as the man behind the Bush administration’s curtain, wielding power from behind the throne.
This depicted him as a key to the US detainee programs and interrogations or renditions, as well as the godfather of the war in Iraq. That might be an unfair portrayal. Cheney served the president. He had ideas about what would and would not work in the Middle East.
The Iraq War led to a vacuum in that country. Rather than the dictator falling and it becoming a pro-American government, Iraq was slowly digested by Iranian-backed groups. Then extremist groups such as ISIS took advantage of the disaster and flowed in from Syria as the Syrian civil war raged after 2011.
Cheney may have recognized the domino effect that was set off. Dictators fell in Egypt, Libya, and Yemen. Eventually, Syria’s Bashar al-Assad regime fell as well.
The lesson from Cheney’s use of American power is that this can be used lightly or judiciously, or it can be used like a sledgehammer.
History may be kinder to individuals, like Secretary of State Colin Powell, who believed in a doctrine learned from Vietnam: The need for clear goals in war.
The aphorism “If you break it, you own it” is often attributed to Powell, who used it to argue against invading Iraq. Powell may have been proven right.
However, leaving Saddam in power would have left a leader with genocidal tendencies running rampant. Hindsight is always 20/20. Cheney played a key role, serving as a voice of reason and strength, and was willing to support some of the dirty work inherent in foreign affairs.