The
Bush-Blair war summit should
find a way to negotiate with Iraq
By
Jonathan
Power
April 5, 2002
LONDON - The much-heralded council of war between
President George Bush and British Prime Minister Tony
Blair begins at Bush's Texas ranch on Friday. Whatever
else is in the headlines on that day, the tight focus of
the discussion will be on whether or not to go to war
with Saddam Hussein's Iraq.
This must be the most complicated, multifaceted,
decision that any Western political leader has made since
Truman's decision to go to war against North Korea. Yet,
even if one concedes the ultimate right of any country to
take preventive action against another, which might use
nuclear weapons against it, the argument for a new war
does not stand up.
Despite America's overwhelming military might, it
could be the straw that breaks the camel's back. Until
now the U.S, by its bold and resolute, if misconceived,
war in Afghanistan has proved the doubters wrong on one
important point. The Arab (and Muslim) street has not
risen up in mass anger. Repelled by American military
action it obviously is, if the reporting and polls are
correct, but prepared for action it is not. In a
noteworthy remark at the Arab League summit last week the
Saudi foreign minister observed there had been no flight
of Arab volunteers to join the ranks of the Palestinian
intifada, the most ready cause for which the headstrong
could show their distaste for American policies.
Yet the Intifada is hotting up. Israel has now
declared war on Palestine. To assume that America and
Britain could get away with a confrontation with the
prejudices and yearnings of the Arab street a second time
would be an act of hubris and supreme folly. Just this
week there have been the first clashes between
anti-Israeli demonstrators and the Egyptian police.
Amazingly, there still seems no real effort in Washington
to rein in Sharon's militaristic impulses or to take
initiatives that could give real negotiating life to the
path breaking peace proposals of Crown Prince Abdullah of
Saudi Arabia. Yet without that the ground could never be
laid for consensus among America's Middle East allies
about invading Iraq.
Yet even if such considerations are put on one side in
the name of doing what has to be done before it is too
late, the question is then begged, does it HAVE to be
done? According to Scott Ritter, the former American head
of the United Nations Special Commission's concealment
unit, charged with disarming Iraq, "it was possible as
early as 1997 to determine that, from a strictly
qualitative standpoint, Iraq had been disarmed of Weapons
of Mass Destruction (WMD) and that "as long as monitoring
inspections remained in place Iraq presented a WMD-based
threat to no one."
Before we conveniently forget our recent history we
should recall what led to the expulsion of the UN
monitors- because Washington could never bring itself to
cease saying that only the removal from power of Saddam
Hussein would lead to the end of sanctions. There was no
light at the end of the tunnel, as far as Saddam was
concerned. America has long boxed itself in from finding
a way to resolve its various disputes with Iraq by
demanding the one thing that those in power in Baghdad
will never concede. And meanwhile, with the UN inspectors
thrown out of the country, the research on WMD has
proceeded. How far have Iraq's scientists gone? And what
would Saddam do with them if he developed such
weapons?
Progress, given the application of sanctions and the
degree of destruction of facilities brought about by the
Gulf War and the follow up action of the UN inspectorate
can hardly have been fast. Most of Iraq's sophisticated
state of the art planes, incidentally sold it by western
arms merchants with the full connivance of the
governments, were either destroyed in the war or fled to
Iran. The air force that Iraq boasts today is a poor
shadow of what it had and its pilots are ill trained,
desperately short of flying hours. As for its small stock
of Scud missiles, they are not adapted with the
sophisticated warheads that would enable them to carry
WMD. Yet at the end of the argument the critic has to
concede that one day Saddam Hussein may have such weapons
and may be motivated to find a way by suitcase, boat or
whatever to smuggle one into New York or Tel Aviv.
But we have been through this once before. With North
Korea. President Bill Clinton was forced to look down the
barrel of a gun and find that the prospect of war with a
perhaps nuclear-armed North Korea was too terrible to
contemplate. Former president Jimmy Carter went to
Pyongyang and saved America's bacon with a deal that
satisfied both sides. In its own way it was as dangerous
a situation as the Cuban missile crisis and was resolved
the same way. More recently, America and Britain have
successfully dealt with Libyan terrorism by persistent
negotiation.
What issues are so intractable that they can't be
negotiated with Saddam Hussein? No one since the Gulf War
has seriously tried. It would require a 180 turnaround by
both London and Washington. But sometimes in politics
that is what leaders are elected to do.
I can be reached by phone +44
7785 351172 and e-mail: JonatPower@aol.com
Copyright © 2002 By
JONATHAN POWER
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"Like
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