The carrier of creative chaos

On March 31, the aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush departed naval station Norfolk in Virginia, bound for the Middle East to join the other three carriers (USS Lincoln, Tripoli and New Orleans) as American and Israeli air strikes against Iran enter their second month.  The name alone forces us to reckon with two legacies bequeathed by the George W. Bush administration nearly a quarter century ago. The 41st president, George H.W. Bush, fought a war in the same region in 1991. He drove Iraq out of Kuwait and then stopped. His national security adviser, Brent Scowcroft, explained the logic: ‘It was the first conflict after the Cold War, and we wanted to establish rules’.  As such, the coalition was […]