Clinton's
Dangerous Options
With Saddam Hussein
By JONATHAN POWER
LONDON-- Clinton's sex life in
the White House is surely only his wife's concern. It
certainly shouldn't spill over into the nation's business
and even more certainly it shouldn't spill over into foreign
affairs. And yet we have officials in the Kremlin telling
the New York Times that "they were increasingly worried that
President Bill Clinton, enmeshed in a deepening scandal at
home, would attempt to assert his leadership abroad with a
rapid military strike on Baghdad".
Pace, Moscow. There were some good and
sound reasons for a military strike long before the scandal
broke. If ever there was a case for using military force in
the post-communist world this is probably it. There are no
doubts about Saddam Hussein's moral qualms--he has none. He
has used poisonous gas not only during his war with Iran but
against his own people. There are no doubts about his
geopolitical ambitions--he has tried unsuccessfully to
absorb Kuwait, he has threatened Israel with total
incineration and he has given every indication that he wants
to be master of the Middle Eastern universe. Anyone who
steps in his way, whether it be a too inquisitive British
journalist or a dissident son-in-law meets a quick
execution.
UN sanctions and the arms inspectorate
that goes with them are essential tools in keeping Saddam
Hussein tied down. Without these he could develop, in the
due course of time, the potential to be even more
destructive than Adolf Hitler.
Saddam has now made it clear that he
is intent on circumscribing the activities of the UN
inspectors who have asked for access to the so-called
presidential palaces and the other off-limit sites. They've
been rebuffed and it is reasonable to assume that is where
the research and development work on weapons of mass
destruction is taking place. While it may be true that the
inspectors have dismantled the harder-to-hide nuclear
weapons program there can be no surety that they've had much
success with chemical and biological weapons that don't need
much more in the way of facilities than a kitchen sink.
Nevertheless, what should give Clinton
pause is not how a military strike would play in
scandal-seized Washington but the low chance of it being a
success. If, indeed, these suspect plethora of palaces are
repositories of weapons research we can be sure they are
deeply bunkered. Air strikes would only have a limited
impact, and if the target list was widened to power
supplies, military command centres and the like, the
collateral civilian damage would be immense and the
political damage even counterproductive. (Iraqi public
opinion is no more likely to turn against Saddam than it has
on previous occasions. Besides, Arab public opinion at
large, frustrated with American reticence in pushing Israel
to honour the Oslo accords has sunk into one of its sour,
anti-American moods.)
The alternative, a massive,
get-it-over-with ground assault meant to depose Saddam once
and for all would require a military build up equal to that
of the Gulf War. Has America, bereft of allies, except
possibly Britain, got the stomach for that?
What is needed most in Washington is
patience. The threat from Saddam Hussein is not imminent. If
sanctions continue they will go on clipping his wings both
economically and militarily. If the inspectors can continue
at least to monitor the nuclear situation, as they say they
can, that is the most important. The threat from the kind of
chemical and biological weapons that can do a modern western
army any serious harm are probably a decade's research away.
The types of such weapons Saddam can manufacture today are
just too primitive for effective battlefield use against a
modern western army. Anyway, America is quite capable of
getting the message through to Baghdad, as it did at the
time of the Gulf War, that if they were used in any
encounter retribution would be swift and severe.
A policy crafted on these lines is not
likely to be seriously questioned by the Security Council,
particularly if Washington is prepared more explicitly than
it has in the past to agree in principle to the lifting of
sanctions if the arms inspectors are one day satisfied. And
unity in the Security Council is America's best asset in
keeping Saddam Hussein's big threats under wraps--and
waiting the tyrant out. In ten years a lot can change. Yes,
Iraq can develop recombinant DNA research and eventually
manufacture a deliverable super biological weapon. But, more
likely, he'll go the way of all previous Iraqi despots and
be overthrown.
The purulent debate over Clinton's
sexual escapades has a healthy side. It is, contrary to
Kremlin fears, probably putting big decisions like bombing
Baghdad on hold. It is to be hoped that by the time
Washington recovers its sense of proportion on Bill
Clinton's sex life it also has had time to fashion a sense
of proportion on Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass
destruction.
January 28, 1998, LONDON
Copyright © 1998 By JONATHAN POWER
Note: I can be reached by phone +44 385 351172; fax
+44 374 590493;
and e-mail: JonatPower@aol.com
|