Resist the Urge to Attack Iraq

The Middle East is where the United States does the right thing for the wrong reason with disturbing consistency. The developing confrontation between the Bush administration and Iraq represents a radical expansion of this maxim and threatens to produce the Muslim-West conflict that Osama bin Laden wants.

The reason for confronting Saddam Hussein--ostensibly his unconventional weapons development program and the threat it implies--has been with us for more than two decades.

That Hussein still harbors ambitions to build weapons of mass destruction undoubtedly is true.

But it also is true that he was allowed to get away with his actions for so long--even triumphing over United Nations weapons inspections--because the United Stateswanted to keep a lid on the price of oil.

What we are seeing now is a re-energized attempt to rid the world of Hussein.

We are back to the end of the Gulf War.

Whatever reasons the United States had 10 years ago for stopping short of attacking Iraq directly on land collapsed Sept. 11.

Yet if the reasons for overthrowing Hussein are emotional, then the reasons for not doing it now are overwhelmingly practical. They are Iraqi, Arab, Muslim and Western reasons. They have to do with timing, morality--was Hussein involved in the Sept. 11 attacks?--acceptability and consequences.

A war against Hussein at this juncture would be disastrous on a practical level. Justifying it would destroy all hopes for understanding between East and West.

In judging Iraq, one has to think not only of the ineffectiveness of Hussein’s opposition but also of the inevitable involvement and greed of Iraq’s Arab neighbors and Iran and Turkey.

The Iraqi opposition is divided. The Kurdish leaders Massoud Barzani and Jalal Talabani cannot agree on who and how to lead their people. The chairman of the U.S.-backed Iraqi National Congress, Ahmad Chalabi, is more at home in Washington than in Baghdad.

The opposition’s also-rans include Saudi-and Kuwaiti-sponsored groups with no Iraqi following. The Shia religious groups Al Dawaa and Supreme Assembly for the Islamic Revolution are not acceptable to Washington and others because they preach Muslim fundamentalism. Former army officers in the opposition participated in Hussein’s crimes in the 1970s and ‘80s.

The governments of Saudi Arabia, Iran, Turkey, Syria, Jordan and Egypt fear that Hussein’s end might dismember Iraq and destabilize the whole region. All believe that an attack now would be seen as an attack on fellow Muslims and Arabs and thus endanger their shaky regimes.

Arab and Muslim peoples would support Hussein against the “Great Satan.” To them, Hussein is the only head of an Arab Muslim government who has challenged the West and survived. They have no objection to Iraq’s acquisition of weapons of mass destruction because Israel has nuclear weapons.

Even British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Washington’s staunchest ally in the war against terror, sought to draw a demarcation line between Bin Laden and Iraq. Responding to what he heard from pro-West Arab leaders, Blair has tried since October to stop the drift toward a confrontation with Iraq. Blair appears to see no direct Iraqi involvement in the Sept. 11 attacks.

More practically, Hussein’s army is no ramshackle Taliban. Not only would invading Iraq be costly, but the chaos that would follow Hussein’s overthrow could lead to dismemberment of the country into three smaller states--a Kurdish north, Sunni middle and Shia south--each with its oil reserves. This would put greater financial pressure on the oil-producing countries.

And there is no guarantee that an Iraq without Hussein would destroy its weapons of mass destruction.

Europe will not support getting rid of Saddam Hussein now.

It would have been different in March 1991, when the Iraqi people rose against him and the memories of his Gulf War and chemical atrocities were fresh.

Moving on Iraq now would be doing the right thing for the wrong reason.