We
will be deliberate, yet time is not on our side. I will not wait
on events while dangers gather. I will not stand by as peril draws
closer and closer. The United States of America will not permit
the world's most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world's
most destructive weapons.
 ou
listening Saddam?
The president's
warning in his State of the Union address could not have been clearer.
Saddam's regime is on notice. Iraq is in the crosshairs. And mark
well that the president did not accuse Iraq of complicity with the
September 11 attacks (whether they were involved or not). True,
Iraq supports terrorism and is a threat to the United States on
that basis. But the president, in a few key passages, dramatically
widened the scope and the purpose of the war on terror. He formally
indicted the members of the "axis of evil, arming to threaten
the peace of the world," i.e., those countries seeking weapons
of mass destruction, renegade states that "pose a grave and
growing danger."
Iraq is a geostrategic
menace to the United States and to the civilized world. There is
no better time to begin to take action against Saddam's regime,
no greater opportunity to squelch this threat before it reenergizes.
I won't restate the six-point strategy for subduing Iraq that I
laid out last November; It
is in the NRO archives and all six points still apply. (OK,
U.N. Resolution 1360 has been superseded by U.N. Resolution 1382,
but other than that....) The United States has long had the legitimacy
to take concerted action against Iraq, based on the rigorous enforcement
of the U.N. resolutions on weapons of mass destruction and other
issues. We now have the opportunity, and President Bush has signaled
he will take it. He knows that there is no alternative. "The
price of indifference would be catastrophic," he stated, and
sadly, that is a statement based on recent and tragic experience.
The president
said that Iraq is "a regime that has something to hide from
the civilized world." Iraq has lately denied having weapons
of mass destruction — in fact has always denied it — though
the current claim is that any weapons they did have were destroyed
by the first group of inspectors, or as they call them, the "spy
teams." The Iraqi refusal to cooperate further with inspections
was actually a "theatrical play" arranged by the United
States, "planned in order to launch the 1998 aggression on
Iraq." This refers to Operation Desert Fox, the abortive attack
on Iraq that neither achieved substantial military objectives nor
led to the return of U.N. inspectors. Since then, Iraq has been
allowed to flout its obligations to the international community.
But the Iraqis know they are in trouble on this issue and are beginning
to cave. Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz stated last week
that Iraq was ready to talk to the U.N. General Secretary "without
conditions," a surprising development since the Iraqi position
had recently been that they would only enter into discussions if
the demand for U.N. inspectors in Iraq was dropped.
Saddam Hussein
has lately been on something of a charm offensive. His government
has opened contacts to Iran and made some progress on the issue
of exchanging POW's from the Iran-Iraq War. The Arab League is planning
a meeting in Beirut in March to discuss a variety of issues, among
them the status of Iraq. (The Iraqis had suggested having the meeting
in Mecca, but the Saudis were understandably not interested.) The
Iraqis have even made overtures to Kuwait, though the Kuwaitis have
been somewhat less receptive. Saddam knows that one of the critical
reasons for the Allied successes against the Taliban and al Qaeda
was the political isolation of Afghanistan engineered by the United
States. Iraq has already been isolated for a decade, and if there
was ever a time for them to clear the decks diplomatically, this
is it.
The most potentially
unsettling player in this drama is Russia. When Tariq Aziz arrived
in Russia for a state visit last week, Russian Foreign Minister
Igor Ivanov said, "Welcome to Moscow, where you have many friends."
Sure, it's diplomacy, he can't say "Welcome to Moscow, I hope
you brought hard currency and bottled water," but the fact
is that Russia is Iraq's largest and most important trading partner,
which is noteworthy for both countries. Russia has stated repeatedly
that the use of force against Iraq would be unacceptable and destabilizing.
Of course, there is little Russia could do practically if force
was used — certainly not intervene on the side of Iraq. But
one Russian diplomatic source reportedly said that Russia might
send peacekeeping forces into Iraq, provided an agreement was reached
with the United Nations to that effect. They would be deployed on
the southern border, and their nominal role would be to protect
Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. This would complicate matters greatly for
the allies and could be the reason why the Iraqis are looking to
put talks with the U.N. on the fast track.
One doubts
that Vladimir Putin would take the chance that U.S. forces would
be deterred by the possibility of accidentally killing Russian peacekeepers
in pursuit of legitimate military objectives in Iraq. I can't see
our forces hesitating; the Russians would be give some kind of fair
warning before action was taken, and the rest would be up to them
— get out of the way or else. Furthermore, Putin would hardly
be solidifying ties with the United States by engaging in this kind
of stunt. Far better to simply denounce the use of force in Iraq
and conclude new trade agreements with the successor regime.
Saddam is preparing
his people for the expected attack. In his January 17 speech commemorating
the Mother of Battles, he hailed the steadfastness of the Iraqis
in their time of travail, and called the 1991 battle "a defeat
for darkness, murder, destruction and evil-motivated haughtiness
towards the fountain of goodness, the land of the Arabs, the home
of the Arabs, the land of Iraq." He warned of greater tests
to come, and has discussed a general mobilization with his senior
aides. He has reportedly reorganized his internal command structure
and even fully buried tanks and artillery to hide it from Allied
bombers. (Note to Saddam — keep up the good work.)
Meanwhile the
Iraqi opposition groups are in some disarray and are criticizing
the United States for not giving them the latitude they feel they
should have in taking military action inside Iraq. The United States
and Britain have stepped up attacks on Iraqi air-defense targets,
but claim that this is unrelated to the war on terror. There is
no noticeable or at least public allied troop buildup on the Iraqi
periphery. Iraq is not feeling the heat yet. But on Tuesday night
the president put to rest the question of whether Iraq would become
a theater of conflict; the only question now is when.
|
