Why it isn't the "Iraq War" (NJ 42 / 87)

One of the main problems I've always had with the name "Iraq War" is that, although less annoying than "Operation Iraqi Freedom," it serves as a more subtle form of propaganda. The most obvious question an individual somehow familiar with Iraq will ask when someone says "Iraq War" is 'which one?'

Calling it the "Iraq War" is to somehow imply that the faulty intelligence that led to the 2003 invasion somehow exists in a vacuum isolated from history. Those of us who attempted to connect it with the 1991 invasion were often called unpatriotic or simply disregarded and ignored by an irresponsible media excited by the fervor of yet another example of American military interventionism.

I strive to call it the "Second Gulf War" in a feeble attempt to acknowledge its relation to the "First Gulf War" in 1991 when Iraqi President Hussein actually /had/ weapons of mass destruction. However, is it fair to even isolate the two? I remember US President Clinton launching missile attacks against Iraq during the 1990's, supposedly when the "First Gulf War" had ended, as well as the establishment of /no-fly zones/ to degrade the Iraqi military.

Is it fair to ignore those events? If there was still combat action in between them, is it possible that the "First Gulf War" and the "Second Gulf War" were merely punctuated military efforts in one long confrontation? Did the "Gulf War" we are currently fighting actually begin in 1991?

Or did it begin in the 1980's, when US President Reagan secretly provided weapons to Hussein in order to combat Iran? Or did it begin in 1979 with the Islamic Revolution in Iran? Or did it begin in 1954 with the US-assisted overthrow of Mossadegh in favour of the Shah, whose rule would eventually trigger the Islamic Revolution? Did the "Gulf War" start before the US Army started firing?

It's complex, I must say. That's why I don't think we should simplify it by saying the "Iraq War" and automatically assuming that it slaps together the various events of the past six years in that nation.

And now, if you'd excuse me, I'm hungry.