LMAO. Pres. Bush Sr. set Pres. Clinton up. Not necessarily deliberately, but set up regardless. G.H.W.B. got us into a humanitarian operation (Somalia) that was insanely risky at the end of his tenure (because of the pressure from political left). Bush Sr.'s mistake was the belief that you could have a 'neutral' deployment (it wasn't neutral, we were favoring the people that the warlords didn't want fed). Still, he could have recovered as he had a clear timeline for withdrawal, and a clear, limited scope of operations. If W.J.C. had followed the plan laid down by Bush Sr. there wouldn't have been anywhere near the problem. Clinton got (misguidedly) altruistic and expanded the scope of the operations, trying to negotiate with thugs. In the process, he (Pres. Clinton) placed State Dept and the Military in a more-than-than usually advisarial relationship.
Very good synopsis of what happened. The only thing I would add was that Bush Senior's decision to intervene was not just a function of the political left. It was the video camera as a tool of influence coupled with key spokespersons like Audrey Hepburn. One of those spokes persons was inside the administartion--Andrew Natsios. He was and still is a master of the 15 second sound byte; I know, my ex worked with him and I arranged to have him come over and talk to the CSA and VCSA as we went in.

Best

Tom