Standing Alone in Resisting Iraq? : If necessary, U.S. should act unilaterally

The firm international support that quickly gathered behind the bold American-led response to Iraq’s most recent threats toward Kuwait has begun to show disturbing signs of slippage.

The United States wants the U.N. Security Council to limit Saddam Hussein’s freedom of military action in southern Iraq. What Washington rightly fears is that without externally enforced restraints the Iraqi dictator could again move at any time to menace Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.

Initially, U.S. officials floated the idea of a deep exclusion zone from which Iraqi heavy weapons would be banned. The other permanent members of the council--Britain, China, France and Russia--showed little interest in that notion. Now Madeleine Albright, the American ambassador to the United Nations, is trying to get a consensus for a simpler plan requiring only that Iraq’s best troops, the Republican Guards, permanently leave the area.

The tactical merit in this idea is that the largely ineffectual regular Iraqi conscript troops that would remain could not be trusted to carry off anything as demanding as a second invasion of Kuwait. The real threat comes from the Republican Guards; it’s their personal loyalty to Saddam Hussein that helps to make them so dangerous as a fighting force. That’s why Washington wants them out of southern Iraq.

Albright has a lot of persuading to do, not least because France and Russia have powerful commercial reasons for going easy with Iraq, including relaxing the sanctions that were imposed four years ago. Both countries stand to gain billions when trade and investment with Baghdad again become legal. This consideration, of course, influences their diplomacy.

Could the United States act to enforce its own restraints on Iraqi actions in southern Iraq without a specific new Security Council mandate? Washington has already indicated that it believes it has that authority, under both existing U.N. resolutions and Article 51 of the U.N. Charter, which affirms the right of individual and collective self-defense.

In Saudi Arabia Thursday U.S. Defense Secretary William J. Perry said that while most American ground troops will probably leave Kuwait soon, a considerable U.S. air presence will remain in the region to make sure that Iraq behaves itself.

Clearly, strong international support for keeping Saddam in line is preferable; it is not, however, strictly required. The United States, weighing its own national interests, is apparently ready to act on its own if need be to protect its friends and vital world oil supplies in the Persian Gulf. That would be a tough decision to take, but a necessary one.