Endgame in Iraq Still Elusive Despite Strikes

Despite the most punishing U.S. strike against Iraq since the 1991 Persian Gulf War, the political endgame in Baghdad may not be significantly closer than it was before Operation Desert Fox, according to U.S. officials and Iraq experts.

The bruising, four-day campaign achieved some critical objectives: It struck about 100 targets that provided the Baghdad regime’s main military and security muscle. U.S. and British pilots all returned safely. Civilian casualties appear to have been much lower than anticipated. Officially, the Arab world was either on board, or dissent was largely muted. And Iraq’s missile program was set back a year or more, according to official U.S. assessments.

At the same time, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein remains in control--with opposition inside and outside his country probably still unable to seriously challenge him.

“Saddam is not going to come up laughing after this. He’s been hurt. But there’s one absolute standard by which the U.S. military action can be judged, and that is whether in six months Saddam is still in power,” said James Placke, a former U.S. diplomat in Iraq now with Cambridge Energy Research Associates in Washington. “Are we any closer? Probably not.”

Even the Clinton administration acknowledges that the endgame may be far off.

Indeed, defense officials said Sunday that they have already begun planning for another series of strikes--including determining additional targets--should that become necessary.

“I fully expect him to be there in six months, but his ability to threaten anyone in six months will be much less,” a senior administration official said. “We knew that going in. He is weaker. The region is safer. And our military credibility has been fully reestablished.”

Other experts on Iraq outside the administration agree that Hussein has been weakened. And the new U.S. commitment to squeezing him harder by threatening force again--and again--could well accelerate political developments in Baghdad.

“The very fact that we’ve changed the calculus and that he has to worry about when we will next attack him ups the ante and has to make him more nervous,” said Patrick Clawson, a Gulf expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

“It also means he has to direct his energy toward that problem rather than other things.”

Over the past two months, Hussein’s inner circle has demonstrated greater anxiety than at any point since the war in 1991, analysts say.

When the United States and Britain came within minutes of launching an attack in November, Iraq reacted with a “state of near panic” when it realized that a massive hit would almost certainly damage the pillars that support the regime, Placke said. Its rapid and total backing down on virtually any terms that Washington dictated was unprecedented.

In the past, the regime has boldly challenged the international community, brazenly defied the cease-fire agreements it signed after the Gulf War and cleverly circumvented economic sanctions for more than eight years. So last month’s reaction has led to heightened speculation about Hussein’s growing vulnerability at home.

But that still leaves a large gap between a four-night air assault and fulfilling the U.S. commitment to topple Hussein. And in the aftermath of Operation Desert Fox, Washington is now almost irrevocably involved until that objective is achieved.

“So long as Saddam remains in power, he will remain a threat to his people, his region and the world,” President Clinton said Saturday in announcing an end to the air campaign.

Washington has taken the lead in calling on the outside world to contain Hussein--and the people close to him--to end his rule. It has allocated almost $100 million to help the Iraqi opposition. The political expenditure is now too great for the United States to extricate itself from the Iraq issue without major consequences and embarrassment, according to foreign policy experts.

“We’re in this until he goes,” Clawson said. “Up until February, there was in fact a fair bit of discussion about whether we could learn to live with Saddam, in part because of pressure from the Europeans and the high cost of trying to overthrow him. But now it’s not feasible to allow him to continue.”

The problem, however, is what instruments the United States has at its disposal to promote or accomplish that goal. Most of the noncombat options--including economic sanctions and political isolation--have long been in use. They have limited Hussein’s ability to rearm--to the tune of $120 billion in lost oil revenues--but they show no sign of being able to end his draconian hold on power.

To tighten the noose, the administration has now pledged to use military muscle whenever Hussein strays politically or militarily at home or in the region. Yet while that strategy may add significant pressure, it carries no guarantees of an imminent climax--and may add new costs.

“Is bombing him whenever we get grumpy the solution?” said Judith Yaphe, an Iraq specialist at National Defense University in Washington.

“Unless this results in significant erosion of his power--weakening his conventional forces and making them think about their support for Saddam as well as hurting his ability to produce weapons of mass destruction--then it may just be seen as arbitrary attacks on Iraq that don’t achieve resolution. Then criticism of U.S. policy could become very shrill,” Yaphe said.

The further danger is that Iraq could become so important or dominant on the U.S. foreign policy agenda that it will spill over into other strategic or policy concerns, such as relations with Russia.

“If Iraq is the driver of our policy, does that mean we are willing to sacrifice NATO expansion or other issues to get the Russians back on board?” Yaphe said. “And what is the price we may have to pay in exchange?”

Others doubt that military muscle alone can accomplish much without significantly stronger internal political unrest, particularly among Iraq’s Shiite majority, which dominates the south and has the numerical edge in the capital too.

“His breaking point is not our bombings,” said one frustrated U.S. analyst. “It’s whether the Shiites of Saddam City [a suburb of Baghdad] appear to present real problems. The only way the endgame will play out is if he begins to feel he’s losing control of the domestic situation.”

* POISED FOR ACTION

U.S. officials say they are ready to strike again if Baghdad resumes its weapons program. A6