The Word on Clinton’s Iraq Plan: Reelection

Everyone seems to agree that President Clinton’s chances of being reelected will scarcely be affected by the quality of his foreign policy. It simply does not count for much in these post-Cold War days. That is fortunate for Clinton, because having achieved little elsewhere, he is presiding over two simultaneous foreign-policy failures, in Bosnia and Iraq.

Starting with our closest European allies, many others are implicated in the grossly premature Bosnia elections, which will result in the victory of the Croat, Muslim and Serb warmongers, who have been allowed to openly terrorize the moderates on each side.

But the failure to deal competently with Saddam Hussein’s latest gambit belongs to the Clinton administration alone. The results are very serious and will hardly be affected by further U.S. air attacks.

From the aftermath of the 1991 Gulf War until last week, Saddam Hussein’s power was kept out of the Kurdish areas of northern Iraq. One result was that Iraqi dissidents had a base of operations inside Iraq itself, with easy access to Baghdad. Another was that Saddam Hussein’s regime was cut off from Turkey and thus had no overland access to the many black-market suppliers of weapons and spare parts in Europe and the former Soviet Union. The U.N. had approved a “no-fly” zone north of the 36th parallel, but the unspoken threat of U.S. and allied retaliation both extended the safety zone to the Sulaymaniyah region below the 36th parallel and turned it into a “no-drive” zone for Iraqi ground forces. That is what mattered, because Iraq has no fixed-wing air power to speak of.

When U.S. intelligence detected the move of three Republican Guard divisions to the 36th parallel in late August, a public and stern warning by Clinton might have deterred Saddam Hussein from sending his forces north at the invitation of the Barazani faction of Kurds. After all, the Kurds had often fought before among themselves, but Saddam Hussein had forgone every opportunity to intervene in fear of U.S. retaliation. At the very least, a full-dress warning by the president would have induced foreign governments to pay some heed to the U.S. diplomats who were hurriedly trying to reactivate the anti-Saddam coalition. As it was, Clinton’s silence fatally undermined their efforts, even while election priorities urged him to act quickly. Hence the U.S. retaliation was a hurried and strictly unilateral use of force, with diplomatic support from only Britain, Israel and Kuwait.

Moreover, the force that was used did not amount to much. Because the usual concern to avoid U.S. casualties was much accentuated by Clinton’s political concerns, only 44 unmanned cruise missiles were employed. Much less accurate than laser-guided bombs, they cannot achieve the effect of a serious bombardment except in very large numbers, precluded by their high unit cost. At that point, Clinton pronounced himself satisfied with the few minor targets destroyed, even though nothing had been done to undo Saddam Hussein’s victory in the north. And by unilaterally extending the southern “no-fly” zone to the 33rd parallel (and proclaiming a “no-drive” zone below the 32nd parallel) without making the effort to enlist the support of the great powers or even of America’s closest regional allies, the Clinton administration made it easy for Saddam Hussein. He can act up at will in the knowledge that this time it is the U.S. that is diplomatically isolated, as he was in 1991.

Further U.S. attacks against his ineffectual air defenses hardly deprive him of anything of value. At this point, only what the world would see as grossly excessive force, aimed at Baghdad itself, could possibly restore the situation. But then again, it will probably make no difference in November, and that is the only thing that seems to count for this president.