11 Years Ago In TIME

By Melissa August, Harriet Barovick, Elizabeth L. Bland, Heather Won Tesoriero and Rebecca Winters

Once again, the U.S., led by a President named Bush, has placed a deadline on SADDAM HUSSEIN, as a prelude to what seems a nearly inevitable war. A little more than a decade ago, TIME was chronicling the same sort of waiting game:

These are the longest days. Time moves in slow motion. An entire world waits with shallow breath, and the news never ends. Snippets of hope are dashed almost as quickly as they appear, only to be succeeded by fresh rumors of a peaceful exit. In a sense, it is all familiar. End games fascinate. In school, where we studied them attentively, the chapters were invariably titled "The Drift Toward War." The conclusions, too, were nearly uniform: If only there had been more time; if only the antagonists had understood one another better; if only the crisis had been nipped in the bud before it escalated. However historians eventually judge the rush of events in the Persian Gulf, few will fairly conclude that what occurred was a failure to communicate. For months, George Bush has agonized that Saddam Hussein has not got the message. Tariq Aziz buried that illusion last week in Geneva... If clarity has been assured, only tragedy remains. Both sides, it seems, are ready for war because neither is willing to suffer a supposedly worse fate--the humiliation that capitulation, or its perception, implies. --TIME, Jan. 21, 1991