*Now is not the time to go wobbly*
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Now is not the time to go wobbly is the line John Kiriakou identifies as the hinge of 2 August 1990.

Having briefed George H. W. Bush in the Oval Office that morning, Kiriakou's reading of the president was that he "genuinely didn't know what to do" about the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait.

Later in the afternoon Bush took a telephone call from the British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher. What she said, "George, now is not the time to go wobbly", was immediately leaked and has since become famous. In Kiriakou's account it was that, rather than anything briefed to him in the Oval Office, which made Bush finally decide to oust Iraqi troops from Kuwait.

The decision that followed shaped the rest of Kiriakou's early career: the war to drive Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait, the choice to leave him in power afterwards rather than destabilise the region, and the long Iraq account Kiriakou worked as Saddam's classified biographer.

See also

- The Oval Office briefing of 2 August 1990
- Saddam Hussein's classified biographer
- Saddam Hussein
