Iraq Shock: Only Response Is to Repel, Punish Aggression : The price of action will be great--but cheaper in the long run than inaction

There are always scores of reasons for choosing to do nothing when despots march. Self-deluding British, French and U.S. politicians could recite them all in the 1930s. Now, a new despot threatens. This time, if the world is wise, courage and decency--and firm collective action--will prevail.

The U.N. Security Council, responding to Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, has voted mandatory global economic sanctions against the aggressor, providing further heft to the extraordinary consensus earlier reached by the United States, the European Community, Japan and the Soviet Union. The next imperative is to put muscle behind the move to isolate Iraq by acting to cut off its trade, especially its vital oil exports.

Let there be no mistake about it: Iraq’s dictator Saddam Hussein intends to call the tune on oil pricing. With the seizure of Kuwait’s oil resources, he now controls about 20% of the world’s known reserves. His aggression, and the implicit threat of future belligerency against Saudi Arabia, would likely make his threatening voice dominant within OPEC’s councils. In that event, the oil-consuming world--the whole world, let it be understood, and not just the major industrial countries--would find itself an economic hostage to one megalomaniac.

A good beginning has already been made in standing up to the Little Seizer of the Persian Gulf. President Bush has not only been preaching to the converted--major Western countries have suspended most trade with Iraq--but he has also been doing a good job of helping broaden the international consensus. The conversion process hasn’t always been routine, but Japan, with evident selflessness, has accepted considerable economic risk by banning oil exports from Iraq and Kuwait and freezing loans to Baghdad. The Soviet Union, supplier of most of Iraq’s tanks and planes, has halted further shipment of arms and spare parts. France and China say they will also impose an arms embargo. U.S. Secretary of State James A. Baker III is heading for Ankara to work on the Turks; U.S. Defense Secretary Dick Cheney is hand-holding with the trembly Saudis.

The next crucial need is to blockade Iraq’s sole source of foreign exchange. The fastest way to do that is by completely halting its oil shipments through pipelines across Saudi Arabia and Turkey. What is fast, though, isn’t necessarily what is politically feasible. The Saudis especially, for all the tens of billions of dollars in U.S. weapons they have bought, seem clearly terrified of doing anything that might provoke Saddam Hussein. Which leaves Americans and everyone else (not to mention the Israelis) to wonder: What are all their Western-origin planes and tanks and missiles for, if not to provide military self-confidence precisely in a moment like this?

If the pipelines can’t be shut down, then the essential next step is a U.S.-led international blockade on tankers carrying Iraqi and Kuwaiti oil from Gulf, Red Sea and Mediterranean ports. The only effective way to interdict that oil is to catch it early, before it becomes anonymous in the world oil stream. Risky business: Hussein is barbarous enough to react viciously against Westerners unlucky enough to be caught in Kuwait or Iraq. But the risks of inaction are far greater.

Such a range of initiatives would by no means be cost-free, and national leaders owe it to their peoples to say so plainly. Oil prices are already soaring: With an effective oil blockade, gas prices would rise even more, and a heavy price would be exacted. National economies that are already less than robust, including this country’s, could be nudged over the edge into recession.

That is a bleak prospect to consider. But far worse would be in store if inertia, timidity and narrow national interests prevented an effective response to Iraq’s aggression. For if nothing is done to interfere with Iraq’s trade--if once again a tyrant is permitted toget away with bullying and brutalizing his neighbors-- then pain, economic and otherwise, of a far greater magnitude would fall upon the world to endure and do damage for years to come.