We Let Saddam Get Away With It

The crisis over the expulsion of U.N. weapons observers from Iraq has eased. But the way it was handled by the Clinton administration has made another, similar crisis highly probable. It is thus important to draw the appropriate lessons.

On the two occasions when the administration used force against Iraq, in 1993 and 1996, it resorted to mere pinpricks. Judging from this experience, Saddam Hussein saw a political opportunity when Russia and France recently blocked a weak Security Council resolution to put baby teeth into the U.N. inspection effort. Hussein rationally concluded that the political response to challenging the U.N. restraints would be no more meaningful than the military one.

The administration’s first reaction to Hussein’s threat to expel American inspectors was to warn that the issue was non-negotiable. Yet, it acquiesced to a three-man U.N. mission to Iraq, an inherent invitation to compromise. Hussein probably never sought the immediate elimination of U.N. inspections. Almost certainly, his real aim was to achieve a veto over the conduct of inspections, to multiply the obstacles to effective enforcement and to trigger a diplomacy that would undermine the U.N. effort by weakening the core of the Western coalition and encouraging a broader Russian role in the area. To Hussein, any change in inspection procedures or any modification of sanctions under threat would spell success for him, undermine the confidence of the weak Gulf states, embolden Iran and erode U.S. leadership.

Given these stakes, the overarching U.S. objective should have been to bring about an unconditional return to the existing inspection system, together with strict accounting of the diversion of prohibited material during the inspection hiatus. But the U.S. commitment to multilateral action and to demonstrating a conciliatory, hence compromising, attitude ran counter to these imperatives.

The hesitation of the former Gulf coalition to step up to the crisis was in large part due to doubts about the ultimate U.S. strategy. The various leaders, with their finely honed sense of survival, feared that, after an ineffectual U.S. response, they would be left alone with a radical Iraq and, later on, with an even more powerful Iran. They have probably been hoping in private that Washington not pay attention to their public reluctance to support strong action. The clear lesson of the Gulf War is that multilateral coalitions come together when the United States leaves no doubt about its determination to act alone if it must; other nations can then affect events only by joining the coalition.

When the administration blamed Arab foot-dragging on the reputed intransigence of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, it dangerously confused this issue. No state of the erstwhile Gulf coalition would encourage Iraqi domination of the Gulf to vindicate the Palestinian cause, especially when most have expelled Palestinians from their countries. But countries that were never part of the Gulf coalition may gleefully use this excuse to increase pressure on an Israel in open conflict with its principal ally.

Unwilling to face down Hussein, U.S. diplomacy turned to countries like France and Russia that, having opposed U.S. policy in the Security Council, were assumed to have a standing as mediators. For this, the United States paid in two ways: any compromise would vindicate Hussein’ goal of making sanctions the issue rather than his transgressions; and it would establish opponents of U.S. policies as permanent advocates of Iraq. In the follow-on U.N. diplomacy, Russia has proposed that the inspection agency be assigned five deputy chairmen, one from each of the permanent members of the Security Council, and that the books on nuclear inspections be closed. This would transfer the deadlocks of the United Nations to its inspection unit.

The United States faces two imperatives: defining a policy to deal with the immediate situation; and devising a long-range strategy for the Gulf.

With respect to the immediate situation, any modification of the inspection system or easing of sanctions undermines the long-term ability of the United States to protect the Gulf. The United States should therefore reverse the Geneva “compromise,” by which the inspectors returned to Baghdad in exchange for a diplomatic process to review the composition of the inspection teams and an easing of the food-for-oil sanction. Specifically:

* The administration should stick to the proposition that only the Security Council can change the structure, mission or composition of U.N. inspection teams, and it should use its veto against any try.

* The administration should refuse any modification in the food-for-oil program until the inspectors have had unimpeded access for at least four months to all sites, including the so-called presidential sites--Hussein’s reputed residences, from which they are still barred.

* The administration should prepare for military action to exact full compliance with inspection procedures. These should be designed to deprive Hussein of the chief elements of his military structure. The current crisis is the result of years of drift, during which the question of U.S. purposes was deferred while the basis for existing policy was eroding. A coherent long-range strategy for the Gulf must be devised urgently to deal with some questions admittedly not easily answered:

Can dual containment--the policy of basing Gulf policy on simultaneous opposition to Iran and Iraq--work? What other countries must be involved? What is the role of Turkey and how is its role in the Gulf to be related to other Turkish priorities? If the policy is to be modified, toward which country, by what methods and to what end--always keeping in mind that after all that has passed between Hussein and the United States, a settlement with him is impossible for the United States in the foreseeable future?