Take the Offensive, Lose the War : Our goal is not to punish Iraq but to ensure its good behavior. Rushing into a fight won’t achieve that aim.
Anyone who has ever tried to explain the world to a child will have directly experienced the core difficulty in dealing with the Persian Gulf situation. After three or four why questions and because answers, we run out of comprehensible explanations. The understanding of any human event is not far removed from realms of deep mystery, vast ignorance and blind faith.
That enduring fact, which is the source of familiar exasperation in dealing with the profound simplicity of a child’s questions, is also a prime source of danger and tragedy in dealing with the use of military power. It is difficult to connect destructive actions with justifying purposes, particularly given the intense emotions that arise in armed confrontations. The consequences of war nearly always deviate from original intentions, and whatever the outcome, heartfelt tragedy in the lives of many people is always a major ingredient.
As emotions rise and war drums pound in the media on both sides, it is important to clarify our purpose. With the instruction of so much bitter experience, we ought to have learned by now to ask some simple questions and to keep the answers straight.
Why do we resist Iraq’s aggression more assertively than the many others we have tolerated? The best answer is that we are trying to defend a new, emerging international order in which the use of military power is restricted to the defense of national territory, and all countries participate in the international economy on equitable market terms, and legal principles have serious effect. These purposes far transcend questions of the American life-style or the assertions of any particular culture. Keeping these purposes in mind will help us keep focus on an extremely important fact: The confrontation in the Middle East is, above all, a battle for legitimacy, and it will be won or lost in those terms. To win, the mobilization of firepower is necessary but it is not sufficient alone.
Under the implicit rules of the emerging international order, it is legitimate for the United States to defend Saudi Arabia. That will be the judgment of most of the world as long as that remains the limit of our military objective. It is more legitimate to conduct this defense in cooperation with other major powers, and it ultimately will be vital in political terms that we do so. Basically, we are asserting that Iraqi aggression is not solely an Arab problem but one of overriding concern to the international community. As a practical matter, it is questionable that the United States can make that assertion by itself. Acting with support of the U.N. Security Council, we can certainly do so.
Defense of the new international order clearly requires an unconditional withdrawal of Iraqi forces from Kuwait and the reconstitution of an indigenous form of government that enjoys the consent of Kuwaiti citizens. It requires as well the unconditional release of human hostages.
Economic sanctions and political isolation are the legitimate means for achieving this, and fortunately there is good reason to believe that they can be effective in due course--which may mean as much as a year. There is no good reason why we cannot sustain the sanctions and the protective deployment of military power for a year and longer if required. Yes, it is hot in Saudi Arabia. Yes, the military deployment is an unanticipated expense at an awkward moment. Yes, it is a major personal burden for those involved. The purposes justify, in fact mandate, these costs.
We cannot legitimately accelerate the likely course of resolution by initiating the offensive use of military power. We can expect to lose the decisive battle for legitimacy if we attempt such an action.
And we cannot legitimately extend our objectives to include a change in Iraq’s leadership or its political regime, however intensely we may desire it, and however popular that course may come to be in the United States. Nor can we legitimately commit ourselves to dismantling Iraq’s military Establishment.
These temptations, while predictable, present one of the major dangers for the United States. The dynamics of emotion, the natural urge to counter belligerence, and the practical capabilities that will be available when the military mobilization is complete will produce strong impulses for preemptive military action. Controlling these impulses will be the primary American problem. The battle for legitimacy presents a severe test of balance, perspective and patience, not historically our strongest suits. This is a very grave matter, and its positive resolution will require a distinct maturation of United States policy. That, also, we had best keep uppermost in mind.