WARNING: HINDSIGHT WILL BE APPLIED
We are on the verge of war – it’s coming, the only question is it tomorrow or the day after. How did we get here? Well, certainly mistakes have been made. But let’s go all the way back to the end of the Gulf War. At the time, I supported Bush I decision to narrowly interpret the UN mandate and sign a ceasefire with Saddam. Even with hindsight, that may have been the best decision, but it certainly could have been the wrong decision. But where Bush I really failed was that while the war was well planned and carried out, the ceasefire wasn’t given much thought. And the real problem started when we demanded that Saddam disarm, but did nothing when he didn’t, and encouraged revolt against him, but did nothing when it occurred. IMHO, that was where we made our biggest mistake. We should have declared Saddam in violation of the ceasefire, and helped the rebels. But we were fearful of what came next, the possible breakup of Iraq, and the possibility of neighboring countries taking advantage of civil war in Iraq. But at that point, a minimal investment of force would have paid huge dividends.
Having survived the Mother of All Battles, Saddam began to try to rearm and end UN sanctions. And so began the endless patrols of the no fly zones, the inspection process, the salami tactics. Richard Hottelet wrote a great summation in the Christian Science Monitor in 1998:
“So far, Saddam Hussein is ahead on points. It is possible, increasingly even likely, that he will win this round. He has stood up to American saber rattling because, it would appear, he does not believe it.
Now Saddam has some things going for him. The US does not want to attack, but to get the inspectors of UNSCOM, the UN Special Commission, back to work through diplomatic means. Washington’s supporters feel the same way, while Russia, France, China, and most Arab states oppose the use of force altogether.
The US is legally entitled to go it alone and might still do so, but it will not get UN Security Council endorsement unless Saddam wildly overplays his hand. Last November, the council voted to bring him into line by imposing new travel restrictions. But those have been quietly forgotten. And today the talk is not capitulation but compromise.
Another of Saddam’s trump cards is the knowledge that even his enemies need him. This was clear in 1990, after Iraq invaded Kuwait, and in 1991 during and after Desert Storm. In successive resolutions, the Security Council affirmed Iraq’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. While Saddam’s demise or removal was devoutly wished, nothing was done. No one interfered when his troops crushed an uprising in the southern provinces.
Saddam has the advantage of winning if he does not lose; the US loses if it does not win. But what is winning? Thus far, Saddam has had the initiative. The US has “won” a number of confrontations since 1991, sending missiles into Baghdad, bombing radar sites, and rushing warships, planes, troops, and equipment to the Gulf. All of it at enormous expense.
Each time, Saddam has backed down, as he wants to appear to do now, but never entirely. Over the years he never stopped testing his limits. His international support and room for maneuver have grown. The man who invaded Kuwait and burned its oil fields, and whose biological and chemical weapons are meant at least to terrorize his Arab neighbors, now enjoys Arab backing. Meanwhile, the US is accused of a double standard: punishing Saddam for violating his obligation to disarm while making common cause with Israel, which ignores UN resolutions on southern Lebanon, the Golan Heights, and land for peace.
The picture is full of paradox. Economic sanctions intended to confine Saddam are a leaky sieve. He has smuggled out billions of dollars worth of oil to buy luxury goods and forbidden technology while building himself and his cronies palaces. Most of the Iraqi people have been reduced to such piteous poverty that the UN is now more than doubling its humanitarian aid.
Once again, Saddam appears to be calling the tune. He could end the crisis in a moment by acknowledging UNSCOM’s right to inspect any sites it deems suspicious. But clearly he has something else in mind.
His ultimate purpose is to end sanctions, sell his oil, and regain a free hand. To do this, he must move in stages. First, he may head off the possible crunch by enveloping it in a fog of diplomacy, partial offers, human intercessions, and obfuscation. Salami tactics would slice away UNSCOM’s legitimacy and authority. The US could veto any proposal in the Security Council to terminate restrictions or call off the monitoring and verification UNSCOM is empowered to conduct.
But, over time, Saddam’s money could crumble sanctions, and the US would hardly fill the Gulf with carrier battle groups every time he tweaked Washington’s nose. There comes a time when attack is politically out.
The prospect is not bright. Sweden’s Rolf Ekeus, former head of UNSCOM, had it right five years ago: “With the cash, the suppliers, and the skills,” he said, ” [Iraq] will be able to reestablish all the weapons. It may grow up like mushrooms after the rain.”
Bill Clinton and Tom Dashcle understood this in 1998, which is why Tom voted for a use of force resolution (which he voted against in 1990 and 2002) and Bill bombed in 1998. I don’t know that the country would have supported Clinton invading Iraq in 1998 – 9/11 truly caused a state change in this country. So Clinton did what Bush I did — bloodied Saddam’s nose and hoped that the sharks would be attracted by the blood — with equal success. So now Bush II has decided that a change in policy will result in a change in outcome, and the US stands on the brink of invasion in an attempt to address the root cause of our problems with Iraq, namely Saddam Hussein himself.
The surprising thing isn’t that France, China, and Russia don’t support the use of force – they haven’t since the end of the Gulf War, and were very reluctant even then — but that they voted for resolution 1441. But we see now that that was a tactical maneuver, and not a strategic change. Nope, they voted for it for one reason – delay. By agreeing to it while having no intention of ever seeing it enforced, they trapped the United States into following their timetable, their interminable delays, strung along by the merest hints of cooperation by Saddam.
War is an ugly thing. But there comes a time when diplomacy is uglier, and we have reached that point. Saddam will never cooperate. If he wanted to, he would have sometime during the past 12 years. Perhaps a credible threat of force would have worked, but the French, Russians and Chinese have seen to it that the threat of force could be gotten around through non-concession concessions. At this point, we have become the parent scolding the child – if you do that again, you’ll be sorry – but never taking action. So either we agree to a policy that we know won’t work, has no hope of working and continue the charade of inspection, and will only embolden every other tyrant to acquire weapons of mass destruction, which will embolden every terrorist to strike the impotent America, and will consign the Iraqi people to ever more torture, rape, and death; or we invade Iraq and depose Saddam, killing innocents along with way, and worrying other nations about our power. So President Bush has chosen the lesser of two evils, and war will come to Iraq.
