A Perfect Crisis for Bush to Show That He Is a Tough Guy : Iraq: Since Hussein presents no immediate threat, the President can control to a great extent the timing of an attack.

The Iraqi crisis continues, and it continues to be the perfect crisis.

Back in August, 1990, the invasion of Kuwait started the first major world crisis whose resolution was not paralyzed by the Cold War, instead becoming the occasion for genuine Soviet-American (and Chinese) cooperation. That in turn made it possible for the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council to act as a fully effective world criminal court, capable of both reaching a clear-cut verdict and then enforcing it, first by a strict blockade and then by war. (The other members, such as Yemen at the time, of course have no veto and therefore could be, and were, ignored.)

Today, the permanent members--Britain, China, France, the Russian Federation and the United States--are united in their judgment that Iraq must not be allowed to keep the machinery for the manufacture of ballistic missiles. That machinery, undamaged by allied bombing attacks during the war, was first spotted by satellite photography and then “discovered” by U.N. inspectors on the ground. Now that Saddam Hussein’s government has refused to destroy this machinery (claiming, absurdly, that it wants to use it for peaceful purposes) the permanent members of the Security Council must decide what action to take--but there is no need for them to decide immediately. For that is the second great virtue of the Iraqi crisis: Saddam Hussein’s modus operandi is to remain passive while others deliberate at leisure what action to take against him.

This calculated inactivity has served Saddam Hussein well enough so far; it has helped him to remain in power. By playing the role of the victim even when he is the aggressor, Saddam Hussein has been able to attract some patriotic political support from the country’s Sunnis at least, instead of having to rely exclusively on repression as he must in dealing with Kurds and the Shiites. But this strategy does mean that Iraq cannot act preventively when facing imminent action against it. Hence there is no interplay of action and reaction to force the course of events when dealing with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. That eliminates the driving element of urgency that normally defines a crisis, and which makes the management of crises difficult and dangerous by creating ample opportunities for all sorts of hurried mistakes and emotionally charged errors of judgment.

In the first weeks after the invasion of Kuwait, while the Security Council was still deliberating step by step what actions to take, Iraq had an intact and huge army that could have invaded Saudi Arabia while the American and coalition buildup was still in its very vulnerable early stages. Now, of course, Iraq’s greatly weakened forces could hardly attack preemptively, but in any case Saddam Hussein will do nothing because, as before, his personal politics demand passivity.

Thus the permanent members of the Security Council can take their time to decide how to act to eliminate the missile-making machinery, and when to act, in days, weeks or months. That, finally, is what makes this latest Iraqi crisis perfect for President Bush as well. For there is no doubt about the form of any eventual Security Council action. Unless the Iraqis finally give in, and do the job themselves with U.N. inspectors present, it will be U.S. aircraft with precision weapons that will destroy the machinery, even if others come along for the ride (at the very least the British, and probably the French, will insist on participating, however useless their contribution).

Given the U.S. role as the chief executor, Bush can control to a great extent the timing of an attack. In the midst of a difficult election campaign, in which his Desert Storm victory of last year no longer has any resonance, Bush could certainly benefit from the opportunity to display once again his special talents of war as well as diplomacy. True, much of the American electorate has evidently decided that geo-economics has displaced geopolitics and would not be much impressed by Bush succeeding against an already defeated Iraq after he so visibly failed against Japan. But at least within the right wing of the Republican Party, Bush might gain a great deal by showing that he and not Buchanan is the real tough guy.

To wait until October would be too transparently manipulative; and in any case, the other permanent members of the Security Council could not tolerate such an excess of patience. To act immediately, on the other hand, would be premature from both points of view. The ideal date from Bush’s point of view might be August or September, but in fact, any delay from now on would be to his advantage--and if action on Iraq must come too soon, there is always the equally unresolved Libyan crisis.