Word: kuwaitis
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...years, American warships have been plying the Persian Gulf, symbolizing and substantiating the nation's role as a global power. Never before, however, have those vital waters seemed so treacherous. By blustering into an open- ended commitment to provide convoy protection to eleven reflagged Kuwaiti oil tankers, the U.S. now finds itself embroiled as a halfhearted belligerent in a seven-year-old struggle between Iran and Iraq and once more rattling sabers with Tehran's fanatic mullahs...
Worse yet, the U.S. military again looks like a gawky Goliath, beset by poor planning, faulty conception and just plain bad luck. Last week the Bridgeton, a Kuwaiti tanker now flying the Stars and Stripes, prepared to limp out of the Persian Gulf with a 30-ft. by 10-ft. hole in its hull caused by a mine that caught its American protectors unprepared. Jumbo military transports belatedly began ferrying minesweeping helicopters from Norfolk, Va. A Navy helicopter trying to land on the command ship of the task force crashed, with four Americans presumed dead. And the whole region...
...other cases, the Administration's problem was not so much a lack of sensible goals as the way it arrived at its policy and then proceeded to execute it. The original Kuwaiti request, which came late last year, was considered and endorsed by the State Department and the Pentagon. Following a National Security Planning Group meeting in early March, President Reagan approved the plan. But many involved say that top officials were too distracted by the Iran-contra controversy to examine its implications fully. Ironically, the scandal provided an impetus to the reflagging proposal. Moderate Arab states reacted angrily last...
...operations that are poorly executed. "We see Pentagon requests for the most complicated of systems," says New York Congressman Charles Schumer, a member of the Budget Committee. "Yet so often when our military has to function in the real world, they're unable to get the job done." The Kuwaiti reflagging is particularly worrisome to many Congressmen because the Administration seems to have stumbled into an open-ended commitment. Senator Bumpers is part of a bipartisan group that has introduced legislation requiring that the reflagging be ended within six months...
...problem, which particularly plagues a democracy, is that sometimes a nation has to make reliable, long-lasting commitments or forfeit its credibility. Nor can such a projection of force be totally risk-free. The decision to escort Kuwaiti tankers violated the maxim that helped shape America's successful foreign policy in the early years after World War II: the need to balance commitments and resources. But in this case the commitment has been made, and the damage that a humiliating retreat would inflict on America's reputation would be almost as great as that from the Iranian arms- for-hostages...