Dick Cheney dies at 84

Former vice president Dick Cheney died last night aged 84. He arrived in Washington as a congressman for Wyoming, then became secretary for defense under George H.W. Bush and served for eight years as George W. Bush’s vice president. He was considered by many to have pulled the strings behind the Bush administration.

What is perhaps his most lasting legacy is the “Cheney Doctrine,” which influenced America’s decision to engage in wars in the Middle East. He campaigned for a military response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, which drove his conviction that any country, organization or individual that posed a threat to the US, or that might in the future, needed to be taken out. 

Cheney had something of an imperial mind, a belief that presidential power had to be restored after it had been curbed following the executive crises of the 20th century, like the Vietnam war and Watergate. His will to power earned him comparisons with the Star Wars villain Darth Vader – critically by the left, and admiringly by Steve Bannon: “Darkness is good. Dick Cheney. Darth Vader. Satan. That’s power.”

Cheney was critical of Donald Trump, especially after the 2021 election. He called Trump a “threat to the republic” and a “coward” who tried to steal the election using “lies and violence.” Yet it could also be said that the Cheney years paved the way for a powerful executive like Trump. Where one president acted in the shadows, the other craves the limelight.

I grew up in the Bush-Cheney years, with a father who was frequently away from our family on deployments fighting in Middle Eastern conflicts. If circumstances had been slightly different, if my father had not come back, I might easily see Cheney as one of the great villains of American history. I would not be alone in thinking so. Cheney is one of the most unpopular figures in US politics of the 21st century, and the America First movement has arisen largely in reaction to his foreign wars.

My instinct is still to be highly critical of entanglements abroad, but it is impossible to judge what the world would be like if America had not fought the war on terror. Throughout his life, Cheney held that what he had done was necessary. He believed at the time, and continued to believe, that invading Iraq was the right thing to do.