Bush Sends a Clear Signal to Baghdad : Timing is right, message is right; let’s hope

Saddam Hussein’s first response to the U.N. Security Council vote authorizing force if necessary to end Iraq’s occupation of Kuwait was belligerent defiance. President Bush’s first response was to seize the diplomatic initiative with an offer to seek a peaceful resolution to the crisis. Bush has invited Iraqi Foreign Minister Tarik Aziz to talks in Washington during the week of Dec. 10, and proposed sending Secretary of State James A. Baker III to Baghdad to meet with Hussein any time between Dec. 15 and Jan. 15. The latter date is the council’s deadline for Iraq to leave Kuwait and free its foreign hostages, or face possible military action.

Bush’s timing could not have been better. His offer for direct high-level talks, for going the extra mile, as he put it at his news conference on Friday, came less than 24 hours after the historic U.N. vote. Only once before, following North Korea’s invasion of South Korea 40 years ago, was such sanction for collective military action voted--then, as now, in response to an aggression that could not be disguised or denied. Now, with the political and moral authority of the council vote behind him, and with the 26-nation military buildup of anti-Iraq forces proceeding apace, Bush has made the diplomatically astute and politically laudable grand gesture. It is a logical follow to Baker’s considerable achievement in winning support for the use-of-force resolution from among a dozen regionally and politically diverse members of the council.

The question now, as always, is how Saddam Hussein will respond to what may well be his last chance to negotiate a face-saving retreat from Kuwait and avoid war.

Up until now he does not appear to have believed that the United States, either alone or in combination with the multinational coalition that has mobilized against him, was in fact ready to use force to roll back his aggression. Attempts to persuade him that the prospect of war must be taken seriously--most insistently pressed by the Soviet Union, once his chief military and political patron--have been unavailing.

It still can’t be known whether Hussein is finally taking seriously the threat to his survival that is inherent in the mounting concentration of U.S. military power arrayed against him. A rational leader, facing this threat, would probably leap at the chance to look for a way out that would avoid either military defeat or political humiliation. But is Saddam Hussein wholly rational? He has held power for 20 years through a combination of ruthless intrigue and unrestrained brutality, outmaneuvering or outlasting all his enemies. The dread possibility is that by now he may be truly convinced that he is invincible.

We are likely to know better within a matter of weeks. Bush’s initiative has been widely welcomed, as it should be. It marks a reasonable and a responsible determination to explore all honorable avenues to resolve the Kuwait crisis by means short of war. The Bush offer does not in any way dilute the military option. It just may, though, succeed in making recourse to it unnecessary.