Iraq in the Crosshairs
Widening the scope.

By James S. Robbins, a national-security analyst & NRO contributor
January 30, 2002 8:30 a.m.

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 (OK, U.N. Resolution 1360 has been superseded by U.N. Resolution 1382, but other than that....)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.