I wonder what the results would have been had George H. W. Bush pushed on to Bagdad and removed Saddam Hussein as a follow-up to intervening in the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. A lot of people thought that's what the plan was, and would have been quite happy to see that happen.

But Saddam got only a slap on the wrist for that little gaff, because he was still Our Boy in the Middle East--despite his unpleasant tendency to slaughter his own people in substantial quantities.

If one thinks about it a little, it's not too difficult to see that there are a fair number of reasons why a lot of Middle Easterners are not overly fond of the U. S. and A.

Don Firth