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AP Headline: "Iraq to Accept Weapons Inspectors"
Stand firm, show resolve, give a speech, get results. It reflects well on President Bush's leadership qualities that he could influence events so rapidly. It is not just that he knows that words actually mean something, and that to promise action incurs a responsibility to undertake it; but the rest of the world knows he knows it. The president spoke, the international community responded, and Saddam blinked. It shows what can be accomplished when people take you at your word.
Nevertheless, nothing is decided on the ground yet, and it is difficult to take Saddam's offer of "the return of inspectors without conditions to continue their work" seriously. Saddam Hussein is a skilled practitioner of the art of triangulation. He will push an issue until he has no room left, and then shift his ground shamelessly and start the process over. The inspections issue is a case in point. He had been intransigent last month, and sent a lengthy letter to Kofi Annan arguing that the inspection regime was just an excuse to insert spies into Iraq, and in any case should not be entertained unless part of a deal to lift economic sanctions. However, President Bush had generated a significant amount of anti-Saddam momentum in just a few days, and Hussein had to find a way to kill it. Even the Russians, Saddam's strongest supporters among the permanent members of the Security Council (i.e., those with veto power) had called for unconditional return of inspectors. By agreeing — rather, saying he would agree — Saddam bent just enough to defuse the potential crisis, to diffuse the political energy building against him. Note that the White House understood this dynamic and quickly released a statement calling the Iraqi move "a tactical step by Iraq in hopes of avoiding strong U.N. Security Council action." The president seeks a much more comprehensive treatment of the situation, and Saddam is just as determined to keep the issue contained. Iraq will now attempt to draw the international community into a complex series of negotiations over exactly what "without conditions" really means, and what conditions it expects to be met before the unconditional inspections may commence. Iraq will want specific agreement on modalities of inspections, numbers of inspectors, from which countries, traveling which routes and in what vehicles, etc. There are all manner of administrative and bureaucratic obstacles the Iraqis can and will throw up on the road to unconditional inspections. This is a negotiating tactic at which the Iraqis are adept, and well practiced. Yet, the new inspections regime cannot simply be a chance for Saddam to shift the struggle into a different arena and bamboozle the international community the same way he did in the past. It is not an invitation to start of another round of hide-and-seek. Nor can the United States allow a replay of the events of 1998, in which Saddam felt bold enough to eject the inspectors, the United States and Britain launched a limited and ultimately ineffective round of air strikes (Operation Desert Fox), and Saddam emerged, at least temporarily, victorious. If inspections take place, they must be prosecuted vigorously, and with full backing of immediate on-call force. And, rather than leaving the inspection process to the U.N. alone, the State Department should play a leading role. But whatever approach we take, weapons inspections are not a panacea, and in fact have serious deficiencies. For example, one argument recently made by the "do nothing and hope it all works out" crowd is that an effective, comprehensive inspection effort in Iraq is impossible. It is a big country, weapons can be hidden practically anywhere, and if even only a few escape detection, Iraq will still have the capability to inflict significant harm on its adversaries. In general, I agree with this line of argument. It is fruitless to concentrate all of our energies on dealing with a symptom like the development of weapons of mass destruction, when it would be far more effective to address the cause, namely Saddam Hussein. Regime change in Iraq is the stated policy objective of the United States, and it has not been altered by the recent diplomatic initiatives. Regime change is the only way to guarantee long-term security, and the only proven method for significant WMD reductions. The Soviet Union is a case in point — decades of Cold War arms-control talks and weapons agreements resulted only in Soviet nuclear superiority. Regime change in Moscow led to a rapid nuclear-arms builddown on both sides that would previously have been considered impossible by orthodox arms-control thinkers. In the end, mass-destruction weapons alone do not create threats; they emanate from the regime that controls them. The upcoming debate over a new, more robust U.N. resolution on Iraq should not be limited to the inspections issue, but should address a variety of questions concerning Saddam Hussein and his militant dictatorship. Kuwait has already suggested including the POW-MIA issue left over from the 1990-1991 war. This would also be a good time to discuss Saddam's acts of aggressive war against Iran and Kuwait, his unprovoked SCUD-missile attack on Israel in 1991, and his illegal use of chemical weapons against Iranians and Kurds. The U.N. could also facilitate evidence collection to show Iraqi support for international terrorism. (I'll go out on a limb here and predict that in time both cases against Saddam — as WMD producer and as terrorism sponsor — will be airtight.) The international community could also look into creative ways to bring about a peaceful transition to a post-Saddam Iraq. The Iraqi oil fields could be placed under international trusteeship, the income derived there from used to establish the transition government, and "oil for food" profits could be routed to those most in need of them and not, as currently, towards maintaining Saddam's apparatus of oppression. Whatever the exact form the resolution takes, its objective should be to lay out a blueprint for the transition to post-Saddam Iraq. The president pulled off a major diplomatic coup in the past week. He single-handedly shifted the term of debate, and brought about significant movement towards a resolution of the Iraq question, one way or another. He and his national-security team will now have to find ways to keep the momentum up and the pressure on Saddam. Meanwhile, the military option grows more viable as time passes — stockpiles are being replenished, troops and equipment moving into position, command-and-control centers being established, and one by one allies signing onto the coalition. It is a good time for the U.N. to ask Saddam to leave power, at least while he still has a choice. — James S. Robbins is a national-security analyst & NRO contributor. |
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ell,
that was easy.
