Baker on Iraq

James A. Baker III dismisses those who argue that we should have toppled Saddam Hussein’s regime at the end of the Gulf War as “armchair generals and talking-head diplomats” (Opinion, Sept. 8). It’s a good thing George Bush and Baker were not minding the store at the end of World War II. They would have ordered our armed forces to stand down at the German border for “compelling reasons” like loss of life, the need for military occupation and bolstering the Soviet Union. With a new lease on life, Hitler would eventually have armed his newly developed missiles with nuclear warheads. And of course, they would have ended the war in the Pacific without Japan’s unconditional surrender, to preserve a balance of power in that region.

Baker actually admits that Bush’s decision to order a cease-fire when he had Hussein and the Republican Guard in his grasp “was enthusiastically recommended by his military and political advisors” and even claims that “Arab radicalism was defeated.” Isn’t this the same James Baker who went before the Republican convention to criticize President Clinton’s foreign policy?

ANDREW SCHINDLER

La Mirada