In fact, Bush only reacted when the American public began to feel horror and remorse over the media stories of hundreds of thousands of freezing, starving refugees fleeing Saddam's helicopter gunships. His response was humanitarian aid, but it was too late to forestall the disaster for the Kurdish nation.

Bush claims that the internal problems of Iraq are not America's problems. However, these internal revolts only began at his urging and under the stimulus of his excessive bombing. Bush refused even to force Saddam to stop shooting civilians from helicopters, even though he could have interpreted the terms of the cease-fire as forbidding the use of military helicopters.

MACHIAVELLI TEACHES that nations and politicians have no ideals, no virtues; they have only interests and strengths. In this sense, Bush is a classic political hypocrite. He chose to liberate Kuwait under the banner of American ideals--ideals he refuses to uphold just a few weeks later.

His political error, though, is not in being a hypocrite; that is his moral failure. His political error is that he was caught by his own rhetoric. His war was a superb success that won him incredible political support, but Bush declared it to be over before it was over.

From the beginning, Bush was only concerned with the United States' strategic interests and his own agenda. In his speeches, he tried to fool the public into believing the war was about morality. The nation went along, and the Kurds believed him, too. But when called to take a moral stand, Bush's actions betrayed the emptiness of his words.

President Bush is a political hypocrite.