American Hero (novel)

American Hero is a 1993 satirical conspiracy theory novel, reissued as Wag the Dog: A Novel in 2004, written by Larry Beinhart. It speculated that Operation Desert Storm had been scripted and choreographed as a ploy to get George H.W. Bush reelected to a second term (taking their cues from Margaret Thatcher's similar war in the Falkland Islands), while at the same time analyzing exactly why that conflict had been so popular. The book formed the inspiration and basis for the 1997 film, Wag the Dog.