Such Good Friends, Such Good Enemies : U.S.-Iraq relations: perils of simple-mindedness

President Bush has won praise and broad support for his generally firm and balanced response to Iraq’s aggression. Firmness and a sure sense of purpose cannot, however, be said to have been hallmarks of his Administration’s earlier policy toward Saddam Hussein’s murderous regime, especially in the weeks just before Iraq’s Aug. 2 invasion of Kuwait.

The Administration’s perceptions about both the nature and the imminence of the threat being concocted in Baghdad earlier this past summer can now be seen--as some clearly saw it at the time--to be pitifully lacking in realism.

The Administration had convinced itself that Saddam Hussein was someone who could be coaxed into restraining his ambitions. To that end it continued to argue, even until a few days before the invasion of Kuwait, that U.S. interests would be best served if Iraq went on getting commodity loans and other help. What was needed, as always, was a policy of hard-headed caution. What was revealed was a policy fed by self-delusion.

Misreading Iraq has become something of a familiar story. Under the Reagan Administration, what began as a policy of neutrality in the Iraq-Iran war soon evolved into a pronounced tilt toward Baghdad as U.S. officials, fixated on the regional threat posed by Iran’s Islamic revolutionary zeal, convinced themselves that underneath Saddam Hussein’s ruthless exterior was a closet moderate aching to get out. Iraq was dropped from the State Department’s list of terrorism-sponsoring countries. It was also given U.S. intelligence data on Iran.

There may have been worse: Britain’s Financial Times reported this week that between 1985 and 1990 the Commerce Department overrode explicit Pentagon objections and approved as many as 14 deals to export “dual use” technology “that directly helped Baghdad’s development of nuclear, chemical and ballistic missile capabilities.”

The weeks preceding the attack on Kuwait found the Bush Administration doing little to discourage Saddam Hussein. The transcript of a July 25 meeting between U.S. ambassador April Glaspie and Hussein quotes the envoy as saying that Washington “has no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait.” Corroborating this, Glaspie added that “I didn’t think--and nobody else did--that the Iraqis were going to take all of Kuwait,” the implication being that the Administration was ready to tolerate a grab of only some Kuwaiti territory. U.S. policy-makers kidded themselves about Iraq, about its dictator’s character, intentions and trustworthiness. The lesson is not to fall into a similar trap in relations with other countries.

Syria, under its dictator Hafez Assad, is only marginally less bloody- handed and territorially ambitious than Iraq. Syria is now a de facto ally in the confrontation with Iraq. All right, but let’s not allow that expedient alignment to encourage the kind of political or material support of Damascus that is certain to be regretted later.

Prudence is also in order in regard to Saudi Arabia, a friendly country, a very important country, but also one whose future political stability may be in some doubt. Saudi Arabia certainly needs more U.S. arms to defend itself against Iraq. Whether it needs $20-billion worth now, and whether the risk of seeing those weapons pass into possibly unfriendly hands in the future is an acceptable one, is something Congress must consider with the greatest care.

Iran’s 1979 anti-American revolution showed how quickly things can change in the Persian Gulf. Iraq’s behavior, past and present, shows how some things remain constant. Both of those lessons ought to be kept in mind as the United States ponders its relations with other countries in this crisis.