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After the rhetoric, the
reality
By Ehsan Ahrari
President George W Bush's September 12 speech to
the UN General Assembly has pushed the option of
unilateral action against Saddam Hussein to the back
burner. Now the five permanent members of the UN
Security Council - the "Perm-5", ie the United States,
Russia, China, the United Kingdom and France, all great
powers - must develop a new intrusive inspection regime
to ensure that during the past four years Iraq has not
developed chemical and biological weapons; the very
nature of development of nuclear weapons is such that it
cannot go undetected.
The most positive aspect
of Bush's speech is that, under mounting international
criticism of his administration's reiterated resolve to
preemptively attack Iraq to remove Saddam from power,
the US president decided to seek great power consensus
on the disarming of Iraq. Now those powers must develop
a new and intrusive inspection regime. However, on this
point, there is also likely to be quite a bit of
disagreement among them, because at least Russia and
China have their own respective agendas, not only
vis-a-vis Iraq, but also related to their larger
strategic objectives.
President Vladimir Putin
of Russia has proven himself to be a very shrewd leader.
He is not known to throw public tantrums, as his erratic
and emotionally rambunctious predecessor, Boris Yeltsin,
was accustomed to do when he disagreed with the US on
major issues. As former Deputy Secretary of State Strobe
Talbott notes in his brilliant study of US-Russia
relations during President Bill Clinton's two terms,
Putin always maintains his low-keyed posture, coolly
presents Russia's perspectives, and then proceeds to
pursue his own course with a firm resolve.
Russia did cooperate with the United States in
the aftermath of September 11 attacks, but that
cooperation had a very unambiguous purpose: crushing the
Chechen separatists. Operation Enduring Freedom was a
golden opportunity for Putin to unleash his country's
military power against the Chechen forces without
wondering what Washington's reaction would be. But to
think that Russia would maintain a similar cooperative
posture on other major global issues was a mistake.
Russia has never given up on reemerging as a
superpower. It also knows that the chances of
materialization of that reality are not bright in the
near future. But it must remain a great power - which,
indeed, it is in the realm of military power - and that
reality becomes a vital precondition for its emergence
as a superpower. As a great power, Russia would pursue
its interests with a vengeance under Putin. But that
reality has no relationship to any suggestion that it
would, more often than not, confront the United States.
Those who disagree with the preceding statement tend to
assign an inordinate significance to America's strategic
interests alone, and tend to minimize, if not altogether
dismiss, the importance of Russia's strategic interests
on diverse issues and in different regions of the world.
Increasingly, Russia has been demonstrating that its
strategic interests on a number of global issues do not
coincide with or complement those of the United States.
The option of attacking Iraq is just one such
issue. Not that Putin is a great fan of Saddam and his
brutal regime. Russia is only being Machiavellian in
determining that its economic interests in Iraq are of
enormous magnitude, and it will pursue them without any
reservations. Since President George W Bush has still
not shared with a number of great powers the evidence or
his reasoning for militarily removing Saddam from power,
Russia will be the last great power to go along with
that measure on the basis of confluence of anti-Saddam
rhetoric alone.
Even in cooperating with the
United States on developing a new inspection regime,
Russia is likely to insist on establishing a linkage
between the Iraqi compliance and lifting of economic
sanctions, especially since such a potential
UN-sponsored measure promises to result in billions of
dollars of income for Russia in trading with Iraq.
China has also consistently opposed taking
military actions against Iraq. The Bush administration
has recently offered Beijing the carrot of placing a
little-known group, the East Turkistan Islamic Movement
(ETIM), on the terrorist list. President Jiang Zemin,
for reasons involving his personal legacy - since he is
getting ready to step down from the presidency - is
looking forward to visiting Bush in October and
improving US-China ties. However, there is little, if
any, possibility that China would endorse attacking
Iraq.
Now, while participating in the Perm-5
negotiations over developing a new inspection regime for
Iraq, China is not likely to overlook the possible
linkages between its cooperation with the United States
and the Taiwan issue, which has remained a major source
of contention between Beijing and Washington. China,
like Russia, is also likely to insist on linking the
inspection regime with a phased lifting of economic
sanctions against Iraq, since it eyes the latter as a
source of substantial trade.
The UK's support
for the United States' position regarding Iraq was never
under serious doubt. After Bush's UN speech, that
country will take a leading role in putting together a
highly intrusive inspection regime. In fact, Great
Britain is the only country on whose support the United
States may be able to count, should it still decide to
take military actions against Iraq.
France is
ready to cooperate with the United States in building a
consensus for an intrusive inspection regime, since
President Jacques Chirac is hoping that Iraqi
willingness to admit UN inspectors would satisfy Bush.
However, France is not convinced that the United States
would not seek still additional rationale to oust
Saddam. The potential of post-Saddam uncertainties in
Iraq and its contiguous areas continue to worry France.
Germany, though it is not part of the Perm-5,
has emerged as a major critic of the militant rhetoric
of the Bush officials. Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's
criticism of the United States has created a noticeable
split between Berlin and Washington on that issue.
However, in opposing a potential US attack on Iraq,
Schroeder is playing to the German audience the same way
as the Bush officials are using the militant rhetoric
against Iraq for their own domestic consumption.
Bush and the UN
France regards Bush's UN
speech as a positive development, but Paris, like Moscow
and Beijing, will favor establishing a linkage between
the Iraqi compliance with the new inspection regime and
the lifting of economic sanctions. Germany views Bush's
UN speech in a similar light, but Schroeder, if
reelected, will reserve judgment about how far his
country would go in siding with the United States
regarding Iraq.
Bush's criticism of the UN -
that it risks becoming "irrelevant" if it does not act -
is not entirely justified. That world body as a
representative of member nations is as strong or weak as
its strongest members want it to be at a given time or
on a given global issue. The United States' bombing of
Iraq in 1998 should have been done in close conjunction
with the Perm-5. But in the absence of international
approval, that action only enhanced the Iraqi resolve to
oppose the reimposition of another inspection regime.
Since then, Saddam has managed to lie low, and to haggle
about establishing a linkage between a new inspection
regime and lifting of economic sanctions. However, the
Perm-5 failed to insist on re-establishing an inspection
regime of any rigor until the recent resurgence of
intense rhetoric of the Bush administration to topple
Saddam. So the Perm-5 are responsible for the failure to
act, not the world body itself.
The United
States' case for military action against Iraq remained
so muddled that there emerged no clear rationale for
removing Saddam from power. In the absence of definite
linkage between the al-Qaeda terror group and Iraq,
Bush's rhetoric of "Either you are with us, or you are
with the terrorists" could not be applied to Iraq. In
fact, Vice President Dick Cheney's rhetoric was highly
focused on Saddam as an "evil dictator". There is little
doubt that he passes with flying colors the litmus test
for an evil dictator. However, even that depiction
cannot be the basis for toppling him, since the world
has many more dictators who are just as qualified for
that title as Saddam. For instance, all the dictators of
Central Asia are equally "evil" when it comes to
brutalizing their people, suppressing freedoms that are
an integral part of the Bill of Rights of the US
constitution, and turning their countries into very
closed and totalitarian places. Yet, the United States
is in the process of enhancing its military and economic
assistance to all of them in the name of fighting global
terrorism. So where is the logic or consistency in the
argument for ousting Saddam, while coddling the same
type of tyrants and dictators in Central Asia?
By blaming the UN, Bush appears to be looking
for a rationale to still take military action against
Iraq if he does not like the modalities of the Perm-5's
inspection regime. After talking so much about ousting
Saddam from power before his speech, in all likelihood a
decision has been made in the US capital to that effect.
About the only thing that might not have been decided is
the timing of that action. The UN speech is also a
shrewd attempt to silence the critics of his foregone
conclusion of attacking Iraq, and to shift the focus of
the debate on Iraq. After that speech, the focus of that
debate has clearly shifted from an increasingly
resounding criticism of that foregone conclusion to the
modalities of a new inspection regime and on the
relevance of the UN.
The fact that Saddam has
violated a number of UN sanctions also does not give the
United States the right to oust him in the absence of a
UN mandate to that effect. The Perm-5 may agree on
passing a strongly worded intrusive inspection regime;
they might favor issuing an ultimatum to Iraq; or, in
the final analysis, they might even opt for very
specific and limited military action short of
dismantling the present Iraqi government. Any of the
preceding would deprive the Bush administration of the
legitimacy for taking the drastic military action aimed
at removing Saddam from power.
War without
allies
Militarily, there is no doubt that the United
States would be able to cause ample destruction of Iraq
by using space or air-based assets. But killing or
capturing Saddam requires the commitment of ground
troops in Iraq and the use of basing facilities.
However, such facilities may be available in Turkey and,
possibly, Kuwait. Saudi Arabia has indicated its
willingness to make its bases available to the United
States, but only if the UN Security Council approves
military action against Saddam. By the same token, a
number of other Arab states might develop their
respective positions along the same line.
If the
United States attacks Iraq, there is reason to believe
that Saddam will fight the "mother of all battles", this
time not for the survival of his regime - for that would
no longer remain an option for him - but to implement
his own version of the "Samson option". There is little
doubt that he has a considerable arsenal of chemical
weapons that he is storing for such a contingency. He is
also suspected of having ample biological weapons in his
possession. What would keep him from using them? How
many of those weapons does he currently possess, and
exactly where are those weapons located in Iraq? Since
the world has no hard evidence regarding the specifics
of his destructive potential, any suggestion to take
military action against him has the potential of being
highly ominous and foreboding for the security and
stability of his immediate neighborhood.
Since
Saddam's rule may not end without a massive commitment
of American troops, the necessity of having bases in
neighboring countries is extremely crucial. Then there
is the issue of the occupation of Iraq. Should US forces
occupy Iraq, and for how long? Does the United States
have the political capability to absorb the body bags
that any potential occupation of Iraq will entail,
without adequately preparing the American people and
gaining the approval of the US Congress for it? Are US
troops sufficiently prepared to occupy a contaminated
Iraq after Saddam has already exploded chemical weapons
during military actions? Hoping to hand over the
military occupation of Iraq to some future coalition of
Arab forces is not a terribly rational option at this
point. What if no such coalition is forthcoming? Even if
such a coalition is forthcoming, its capability to
occupy Iraq is nonexistent when one considers the
potential use of chemical weapons by Iraq. These are
some questions that need prior debating and answering.
Even after answering these questions, the United
States will have to make a prior decision to stay and
rebuild Iraq. Expecting one or more Arab states to take
the lead as an occupying or rebuilding force is a mirage
on which the United States should not be basing its
hopes.
The Bush administration will find out
soon enough that there is a world of difference between
rhetoric about ousting Saddam and details involving the
occupation and reconstruction Iraq into a peaceful
country. The United States has the military muscle to
dismantle the Saddam regime; however, as it is finding
out in Afghanistan, rebuilding a country requires an
enormous amount of patience, capital investment and,
more to the point, willingness to absorb casualties. The
United States has proven itself to be lacking in all but
in the military aspect of winning a battle.
In
the final analysis, the Bush administration might
realize that living with Saddam in power but without
weapons of mass destruction capabilities might be
preferable to attempting to oust him and, in the
process, destroying the long-term prospects for peace
and stability of that region.
Ehsan
Ahrari, PhD, is a Norfolk, Virginia, US-based
strategic analyst.
(©2002 Asia Times Online
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