ABSTRACT
On february 28, 1991, US president George Bush ordered a unilateral cease-fire in the war between the US-led multinational coalition and Iraq. Bush administration policy toward Iraq reflected its conservative, real-politik approach to international relations. US policy toward Iraq focused on UN Resolution 687, the formal cease-fire to the war, a complex resolution of thirty-four paragraphs and more subparagraphs. The Bush administration's assessment of the situation in Iraq and the premise of US policy were remote from reality. The challenge for the Clinton team would be whether it could maintain the cohesion of the coalition over the long term to isolate Iraq, for Baghdad has a strategy to break out of its isolation. The United States could not indefinitely keep threatening to bomb Iraq, however, every time Saddam moved to limit and otherwise prevent the effective functioning of the projected program for long-term UN weapons monitoring.
