Two Legacies, Two Presidents, Father and Son

The foreign policy legacy of the United States in the post-Cold War world is one of conflicting visions, as four presidents have embarked on different strategies and different ways of using American power. George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush had remarkably divergent ways of approaching foreign policy, and yet each was president as turbulent world events enveloped their presidencies. There have been many books and academic articles written about Bush I's response to the end of the Cold War and actions during the first Gulf War and Bush II's response to the events of 9/11 and the subsequent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the actions during the global war on terror. But there have been few scholarly treatments that look at both Bush legacies and offer a leadership and foreign policy take on why their foreign policy decisions were so different. In The Gulf: The Bush Presidencies and the Middle East, Michael Cairo addresses these two legacies through the filter of the Persian Gulf, and how that region has been central to contemporary American foreign policy. In the first part, Cairo sets out the fundamental differences between father and son. Here, he tells a familiar narrative and discusses a number of the reasons why George W. Bush, whose foreign policy bona fides were not well honed, did not follow the worldview of his father's administration, despite the inclusion of many of Bush I's closest advisors in his inner circle. Cairo develops this through a chapter on early experiences that shaped both presidents' lives, before proceeding to compare and contrast their beliefs and styles. In the second part of the book, he analyzes both foreign policy legacies thematically by focusing on the buildup to confrontation in the Gulf, the two Gulf wars and their aftermath, and the search for Middle East peace in each era. Cairo concludes with a comparison of their legacies. He relies on archival research conducted in the immediate post-Bush I years, and on new research during the Obama years. In short, Cairo offers a very good and very well-reasoned analysis of how both presidents have been defined by their foreign policy styles.