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Arnold Offner, Hugel Professor of History, presented research in November at an international conference on the U.S. and the Iraq War held at the University College Dublin’s Clinton Institute for American Studies in Ireland.
The Clinton Institute for American Studies hosted the conference to reflect on the past bi-lateral relationship, to analyze and debate the contemporary dilemmas, and to forecast projections for the future of Iraq, U.S. foreign policy, and the Middle East more generally.
Offner’s paper, entitled “Presidents Harry Truman and George W. Bush, and the Perils of Regime Change,” addressed comparisons between the wartime actions of President George W. Bush and those of President Harry S. Truman. He believes that while there are similarities in the way the Truman and Bush administrations responded to aggression and then sought regime change, Truman recognized when he had gone too far with North Korea and took a realistic assessment of the war in order to attempt to exit it with honor. According to Offner, Bush has not exhibited this quality.
“Truman recognized his overreach and he himself was willing to suffer political consequences in order to extract the United States from the war,” Offner says. “Bush, however, has engaged in enormous deceitful overreach and continues to be in a state of denial.”
In his paper, Offner also argues that the Bush administration’s war in Iraq has violated three major principles of international affairs, starting with the 350-year-old Westphalian doctrine of state sovereignty. Also violated were the United Nations Charter, which prohibits the use of force except in self-defense or with a UN sanction, and the Nuremberg trials judgment, which states that “preventative” war is a crime.
“So long as the U.S. stays there, we are a target for Iraqi insurgents and foreign insurgents,” Offner says. “So long as we’re there, no Iraqi government can claim to be the true government.”
Offner has been to prior international conferences, and was eager for the opportunity to communicate with academics from other parts of the world.
“People are happy to exchange ideas,” he says. “I enjoy these conferences because I get a foreign perspective, a good reality check.”
Offner is author of Another Such Victory: President Truman and the Cold War, 1945-1953. Lafayette students contributed to the book project, which drew praise from historians and was reviewed by The New York Times, which noted that “discussions of the book have resurrected timeworn divisions in the field of cold war history.”
Offner also is the author of The Origins of the Second World War: American Foreign Policy and World Politics, 1917-1941; and American Appeasement: United States Foreign Policy and Germany, 1933-1938.
A member of the Lafayette faculty since 1991, Offner holds master’s and doctoral degrees from Indiana University and a bachelor’s degree from Columbia University. He is a recipient of the Mary Louise Van Artsdalen Prize for outstanding scholarly achievement and the Marquis Distinguished Teaching Award for distinctive and extraordinary teaching. He has won the Phi Alpha Theta National Book Award and the Metcalf Award for Excellence in Teaching.