Leadership Quote by Les Aspin

The most revealing thing here is the phrase “a certain amount of sympathy” - a calibrated empathy that signals seriousness without surrendering skepticism. Les Aspin isn’t praising the Bush administration so much as acknowledging the grim arithmetic of post-Cold War power: Washington can name its preferred outcomes (Saddam gone, Kurds protected) but can’t easily choose the costs, the sequencing, or the unintended consequences.

Aspin’s intent is to frame U.S. policy not as a morality play but as a dilemma with mutually complicating goals. “Get rid of Saddam Hussein” gestures at regime change as an attractive, simplifying solution; “have the Kurds autonomous” nods to a long-standing humanitarian and strategic concern after the Gulf War, when Kurdish vulnerability became a test of American credibility. Put together, they expose the trap: Kurdish autonomy pressures the territorial integrity of Iraq and alarms regional players, while toppling Saddam opens questions about who fills the vacuum and how far the U.S. is willing to own the aftermath.

The subtext is a warning disguised as understanding. By describing the administration’s “problem,” Aspin implies the administration is tempted by outcomes it can’t guarantee and may be underestimating how quickly a “solution” becomes an occupation of responsibility. Coming from a politician closely associated with defense policy in the early 1990s, the line reads as inside-baseball realism: empathy for the desire, realism about the mess, and a quiet critique of ambitions that outpace the political and military appetite to sustain them.