I had a history professor once...

...who said that World Wars I and II could be thought of as a single war -- a second Thirty Years' War with the years 1918-39 as an uneasy truce.

I'm reminded of that by the news that yesterday was the 20th anniversary of the first Gulf War:

The Gulf War, the subsequent imposition of no-fly-zones over Iraq and the refusal to allow Iraq back into the good graces of the international system did not make the Iraq War inevitable. But it created a strong and ineluctable gravitational force pushing both countries in that direction. It was the stationing of American troops in Saudi Arabia (initially to prevent an Iraqi move into Saudi Arabia) that created the formative offense around which al Qaeda was built.

It does sound a little like the inter-war period of 1919-38. And my question is, did the first Gulf War ever end, or is this all just another Thirty Years' War (expanded into Afghanistan) in the making?