Give Negotiations a Go and Hope for the Best : Split the difference on timing and start talking

No one can say with certainty that Saddam Hussein doesn’t prefer war.

Just as Egypt’s Anwar Sadat rose from the immediate ashes of the 1973 war a greater hero in the eyes of the Arab world for merely having taken on the great enemy, so, too, Hussein may believe that the path to glory needs to be strewn with almost as many Iraqis as American infidels.

If that is in fact the mentality of Hussein, then nothing that America can do, short of repudiating the 12 U.N. Security Council resolutions on Iraq, will retard an inexorable march toward war in the Persian Gulf. Under those circumstances, war could not be stopped by a military buildup--because that, in this perverse logic, completely plays into Hussein’s hands. War could not be stopped by more diplomacy--for that is a delusion and a folly. In this scenario, Hussein will not talk sincerely of peace because what he wants is a war that he knows he cannot win but also knows he cannot lose--so long as he survives it.

OPTIMISTIC NOTE: But let us assume the opposite: that even in this hardest of hard hearts, Saddam Hussein shrinks from the thought of subjecting Iraq, which endured eight years of punishing battle with its bitter enemy Iran, to yet another bloody ordeal. And that, in truth, he would like some way out--one short of 100% capitulation.

Can this wishful sentiment be read into the sudden recall of two dozen or so senior Iraqi ambassadors to Baghdad for consultations? Is the Hussein government preparing a new diplomatic initiative for after the New Year? Has it had a change of heart?

Where there is time, there is hope.

Fortunately, the United States remains ready to undertake talks between the Iraqi president and the secretary of state, as originally proposed by President Bush. Too bad that the main obstacle to such a meeting remains agreement on timing--now the silly floating volleyball of daily news reports in what the foreign minister of neutral Ireland has called “the ridiculous haggle and wrangle over dates.”

The latest exclusive on when comes from an Israeli newspaper, which reported agreement by both sides to the date of Jan. 9. If so, that would split the difference nicely between what Washington said it wanted (Jan. 3) and what Baghdad said it wanted (Jan. 12).

MILITARY ACTION: Serious talks, even if they entail a measure of Baghdad foot-dragging and obfuscation, would appear more than acceptable to top U.S. military officials in the gulf. They say--or at least they are saying so publicly--that U.S. forces won’t be ready to move in strength until sometime in February.

No doubt Baghdad, no stranger to the practice of official deception, regards this disavowal of readiness as a red herring--and indeed, if it is, the U.S. military deserves high marks for a remarkable psych-war effort of disinformation.

More probable is the conclusion that the generals are saying exactly what they think, which is that the American force is not entirely in place yet and, therefore, is not ready to attack.

It should be reemphasized that U.N. Resolution 678 does not require military action by Jan. 15. It only opens a window of opportunity after that date. There is nothing wrong, it seems to us, if Baker and Hussein jaw-jaw (because it is so much preferable to war-war) long into the night, night after night, while U.S. forces continue to consolidate, train and prepare for what may in the end be unavoidable.

An editorial Tuesday in the Baghdad Observer, a state-controlled newspaper, endorsed high-level U.S.-Iraqi talks and said, “Peace can always be saved but all it needs is courage.” This newspaper, along with many others, concurs in that sentiment and hopes that it reflects the true view of Iraq’s head of state.