If President Eisenhower were president, do you think he would have invaded Iraq?

Answer 1

NO....he hated war. and knew that war for business interests was immoral but tried to warn us about it. We didn't listen.

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
Dwight D. Eisenhower

I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.
Dwight D. Eisenhower

When people speak to you about a preventive war, you tell them to go and fight it. After my experience, I have come to hate war.
Dwight D. Eisenhower

Answer 2

Perhaps. Although I think he would've been more prudent than Bush. I don't think Ike was so impulsive or aggressive. Nor was Ike so influenced by lobbyists (admittedly, though, lobbyists did hold considerable influence of him, in the later years of his presidency, his diary showed that he was concerned about what he called the "military - industrial complex", and the power of the multinational corporation with the lobbyists it fueled.

At the very least, Ike was an experienced general. He probably would have restrained himself at least until the situation in Afghanistan was stable. I don't think that Ike would've exploited 9-11 as an excuse to go to war with Iraq, though.

I should point out that Ike got the US out of Korea because it was not a popular war, among other things. (If democracy has any meaning - it means that the public's opinion counts for something, and should be what the nation does.) Although it seems remarkable today, lets not forget that in early 2003, going to Iraq was a war that the majority of the public approved of in the polls, and that Bush was a much more popular president at the time.

Answer 3

I lived during the Ike period. He did nothing. He did what the President should: Sit and watch.
He was controlled by Walter B. Smith and John Foster Dulles. He had great advisers. SO he kept out of trouble.
Invaded Iraq. Hardly. He would not have followed someone who let it get to the state it was in. The Clinton administration, while not fostering terrorism, certainly did nothing to contain it.

Answer 4

Who knows.

I do know that Ike was one of the few people who could (and did) resist the pressure and temptation to end the Cold War in one massive pre-emptive strike.

But his warning about the "military-industrial complex" fell on deaf ears. He warned us that continual massive defense spending, leads to big problems, including a military that needs war to justify its own existence.


Mrs. Right - Japan declared war on the US on Dec 7, 1941. But pop history tends to forget that Germany officially declared war on the US on Dec 10, 1941 (three days later)

Answer 5

Yep a long time ago. Long before Saddam could have ignored all of those UN mandates and murdered all of those innocent people.

Answer 6

He might have. But it would have been after Osama Bin Laden had been captured and Afghanistan was stable. He was a general and a leader and he knew what the hell he was doing.

Answer 7

Highly unlikely. He got us out of Korea after all.

Answer 8

he'd have blown it off the map in 1991

Answer 9

He should have invaded Barbara Bush before she had a chance to spawn.

Answer 10

he was to worry about his golf game