Lesson Summary
11 America in the 1980s and 1990s
11.4 A New Era in Foreign Policy Under President George H.W. Bush, the United States took a leading
role in world affairs. Bush continued the war on drugs, and in December 1989, U.S. troops invaded
Panama and arrested its dictator, Manuel Noriega. Noriega was convicted of drug trafficking and
sentenced to 40 years in an American prison.
Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in August 1990 was one of Bush’s greatest foreign policy challenges. Saddam
Hussein, Iraq’s dictator, sought to control Kuwait’s rich oil deposits and increase his power in the region.
President Bush made it clear that he would not tolerate Iraq’s aggression against its neighbor. He
worked to build an international coalition and backed a United Nations resolution demanding that Iraqi
troops withdraw. Hussein did not comply. Under the name Operation Desert Storm, American, British,
French, Egyptian, and Saudi coalition forces attacked Iraqi troops on January 16, 1991.
Twelve years after the Reagan Revolution, Americans were ready for a change in the White House. The
Democrats nominated William Jefferson Clinton, governor of Arkansas, to run against President Bush in
the 1992 election. Texas billionaire H. Ross Perot ran as an independent. Clinton carried the election,
and Democrats retained control of both houses of Congress.
On the political scene, many Americans opposed military involvement in foreign affairs, but Clinton
found it necessary to intervene in conflicts in Somalia and Haiti. When civil war broke out in the former
Yugoslav republic of Bosnia, Bosnian Serbs attacked and murdered Muslims and Croats. This statesanctioned mass murder became known as ethnic cleansing. In 1995, Clinton asked NATO to bomb
Serbian strongholds. This intervention brought about a cease-fire, but violence flared in another former
Yugoslavian republic. NATO troops, including U.S. troops, responded again.
The ongoing conflict between Israelis and Palestinians escalated in the 1990s. Clinton led negotiations
that produced a short-lived agreement between Israeli and Palestinian leaders. That involvement in the
Middle East made the United States a target of a terrorist group called al Qaeda. The group launched
several attacks on U.S. targets at home and abroad.