Although Iraqi president Saddam Hussein has agreed to allow arms inspectors into (certain) areas of the country, the need to convince the United Nations to take action against the despot cannot be dropped like a non-issue. Given the tumultuous history of Saddam?s shell game with the United Nations inspectors, it is difficult for one to imagine that the charade will end here. From the early reports, Kofi Annan was jumping and down in a victory parade for getting inspection concessions from Saddam?s regime, failing to either know or recognize that there are still considerable barriers to ?unfetter?-to use the words of Iraqi Spokesman Tarik Aziz. Words like ?unfettered? may sound good coming from Arabs educated at Harvard and Cambridge, but the true meanings get lost in semantic arguments concealing not only intentions, but chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons as well.
Any American action against Iraq must be prefaced with a few questions. With ideologies; war hawk, pacifist and otherwise, being lobbed back and forth like a badminton birdie, we find ourselves asking more than a few questions that the Bush Administration, and those opposing military action on Iraq, have not answered as of yet.
Will ousting Saddam save lives? That question is still up for grabs, left for ivory tower academians and national security advisors to ponder, along with other theoretical ideas such as whether Hitler could have been removed from power before he grew to be a thorn in the world?s side. Strangely, that question is being asked again, some sixty years later, this time regarding Saddam Hussein. Even the most liberal and anti-war voices note that the Iraqi despot has to be removed from power, but the argument gets sliced pretty thin when the means to do it are placed on the table. Europe?s anti-war voices are compromised by the sheer amount of trade with Iraq, particularly in France (Iraq?s second largest trading partner, sandwiched between leader Russia and Egypt). Sound political judgment has been silenced by the export/import agreements negotiated by the strong arm of organized labor so dominant in the European Union, overly concerned with a profitable status quo with countries like Iran and Iraq. The trade agreements, which dictate that there should be no war, cannot be allowed to enter the picture.
One of the strongest points raised about any invasion of Iraq can be justified with just a retro-gander into history. It is a simple enough question; how many lives could have been saved if Adolph Hitler had been removed from power in 1937 or 1938? More than a few historians have asked this question, and it has been noted, in the same history books that chronicle a war transpiring just a few years later, that Winston Churchill was a proponent of that very action. We all know that Hitler wasn?t removed from power, though a timely coup would have been easier than fighting WWII, with much less loss of life. Holocaust death camps, D-Day, the Battle of the Bulge, the Russian front, the bloody battle for Leningrad, the countless people who died from starvation and disease- no argument for the forcible removal of Saddam Hussein from power can be fronted without events like these being revisited. Preventable? Perhaps.
A week ago, the New York Times printed a powerful editorial about the power of deterrence, particularly nuclear deterrence. For the duration of the Cold War mutually assured destruction (MAD) was the sole method of deterrence. In review, the threat of MAD is the optimistic stance that no country would launch a nuclear attack against the other because of the treaty of MAD. An outcome where there would be no winner was the winning treatise.
Will Saddam buy into MAD? That?s the burning question- whether Saddam Hussein can be counted upon to prescribe to the MAD school of thought. Even during the tense period of conflict in the Kashmir region late last year (disputed territory claimed by second-class nuclear powers India and Pakistan), neither side believed that the other would actually launch nuclear weapons. Are we willing to wager that Saddam Hussein will be so level headed?
What about nuclear blackmail? What would be the reaction of the United States, if say, Saddam said that there was a nuclear weapon in a major American city and it would be detonated if there was not an American withdraw from the holy sites of Islam (mainly) in Saudi Arabia. or maybe a Jewish withdrawal from the ?occupied territories? of the West Bank and Gaza. Those would be the more innocuous requests; demands could range as high as requiring that the Jews leave Israel. Clearly Saudi Arabia and Iraq are not at all close allies, but a common rallying point for the Islamic world is the presence of ?infidels? on the same ground as Islam?s holiest shrines. Saddam would only face light opposition from the Muslim world in making a threat of such grandeur. Giving major power broker status to a despot inclined to irrational behavior is a hot potato that the United States, thus far, is unwilling to handle. In the Bush Administration?s mantra on the subject, the risk of a rogue state possessing nuclear weapons is greater than an invasion where chemical or biological weapons could be used against American or Allied troops.
Leaving the situation to the United Nations is completely out of the question. Their irrelevance after a decade of being pushed around by Saddam Hussein cannot be allowed to be cleared from the table by fancy speeches. If one is to look to the last official display of UN handiwork, the conference of Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, eyebrows have to be raised as to the true intentions of the aspiring global legislature. In a highly orchestrated political theater, the UN managed to fertilize the roots for a revolution by the poor and oppressed of the Third World, against the rich West.
It is just this type of thinking that has made the UN incapable of handling this issue, which is of paramount importance. Iraq?s string of broken promises calls for the burden of action to be taken away from the United Nations. Foremost among the many questions left unanswered: Has Europolitik?s flotsam finally clogged the flow of bureaucratic power to the UN? With just this example of United Nations incompetence in mind, are we to trust the United Nations with any decisions concerning the overthrow and dismemberment of the regime of Saddam Hussein? How should the world, and particularly the United States, judge this inaction? Must one assume that, although the UN took no action when Saddam threw out the weapons inspectors for that last time in 1998, they would take some concrete action now? It is not an option to allow the UN to handle such an important issue if they clearly could not agree on relatively simple issues proposed in a kangaroo council on ?sustainable development?. After years of being flagged as a bloated and broke bureaucracy, the United Nations is toying with a future in obscurity equivalent to that of an international legislative preschool. Flaunting perpetual inaction is no way to sustain world peace. The United Nations has already removed the Security Council from the debate by a decade of inaction.
More on deterrence. For years it was said that the leaders of the great nuclear powers, the US and the former USSR, agreed long ago never to launch nuclear weapons on each other, but needed to keep the ruse alive for a myriad of reasons. Can the civilized world, absent the strongmen of the Cold War, depend upon Saddam Hussein, a man who used mustard gas on 200,000 of his own people, to be trusted with nuclear weapons?
What about Israel? Are we left to assume that Israel will be left to defend itself? As in the Gulf War, Israel was relegated to the receiving end of Iraqi aggression. Allowing a direct Israeli offense against Iraq would have splintered a tenuous UN coalition arranged by the senior George Bush. In this go around, should a shaken Saddam start sending Scuds to Jerusalem, the bullish administration of Ariel Sharon will certainly act differently than the government of Yitzhak Shamir did during the first Gulf War. Most noticeable is the silence of Israel concerning and action against Iraq. Israel, represented by the government and the press, does not want to be seen as an instigator of any actions leading to military actions against an Arab nation. Should the invasion (or whatever course of action taken against Iraq) turn sour, Israel does not want to be seen as beating the war drums; clearly that could leave American-Israel relations in a lurch. In an era when an increasing number of American Jews are questioning their own ties to a distant sliver of land, tjhe mighty pro-Israel lobby cannot afford to gamble away congressional support.
What will become of Saddam?s oil? The House of Saud has officially entered the fray and has said that they will allow the United States to use airfields for any United Nation-mandated attacks against Iraq. Perhaps the Saudi government anticipates a drop in oil prices if the Iraqi oilfields, capable of producing some five million barrels of oil a day, are allowed to enter the world at full flow. For years analysts have marked the desert kingdom as a pot ready to boil over, as an overextended kingdom attempts to cope with a growing population used to living in a highly subsidized welfare state. Many think the Saudi?s sudden interest in regime change makes them a player due to one or both of the following reasons: (1) helping establish a government to lead the newly freed Iraqi people, and/or more importantly, (2) as Iraq?s most powerful and closest neighbor, having the infrastructure required to keep the fossil fuel faucets flowing at OPEC mandated levels. Clearly Riyadh does not want a democratic state introduced next door, since Saudi Arabia is one of the most restrictive dictatorships in the Arab world.
In conclusion, leaving the argument to fester at its own course is out of the question. Any action takes on global importance, as the vacuum bottle of containment was broken on September 11, 2001. To end the ?brave new world of terrorism? requires action, ideally multilateral, but unilateral if need be. It must, however, be done, and soon.
----------------------------------------------------
Stephen A. McDonald writes for www.bigtreenews.com
Any American action against Iraq must be prefaced with a few questions. With ideologies; war hawk, pacifist and otherwise, being lobbed back and forth like a badminton birdie, we find ourselves asking more than a few questions that the Bush Administration, and those opposing military action on Iraq, have not answered as of yet.
Will ousting Saddam save lives? That question is still up for grabs, left for ivory tower academians and national security advisors to ponder, along with other theoretical ideas such as whether Hitler could have been removed from power before he grew to be a thorn in the world?s side. Strangely, that question is being asked again, some sixty years later, this time regarding Saddam Hussein. Even the most liberal and anti-war voices note that the Iraqi despot has to be removed from power, but the argument gets sliced pretty thin when the means to do it are placed on the table. Europe?s anti-war voices are compromised by the sheer amount of trade with Iraq, particularly in France (Iraq?s second largest trading partner, sandwiched between leader Russia and Egypt). Sound political judgment has been silenced by the export/import agreements negotiated by the strong arm of organized labor so dominant in the European Union, overly concerned with a profitable status quo with countries like Iran and Iraq. The trade agreements, which dictate that there should be no war, cannot be allowed to enter the picture.
One of the strongest points raised about any invasion of Iraq can be justified with just a retro-gander into history. It is a simple enough question; how many lives could have been saved if Adolph Hitler had been removed from power in 1937 or 1938? More than a few historians have asked this question, and it has been noted, in the same history books that chronicle a war transpiring just a few years later, that Winston Churchill was a proponent of that very action. We all know that Hitler wasn?t removed from power, though a timely coup would have been easier than fighting WWII, with much less loss of life. Holocaust death camps, D-Day, the Battle of the Bulge, the Russian front, the bloody battle for Leningrad, the countless people who died from starvation and disease- no argument for the forcible removal of Saddam Hussein from power can be fronted without events like these being revisited. Preventable? Perhaps.
A week ago, the New York Times printed a powerful editorial about the power of deterrence, particularly nuclear deterrence. For the duration of the Cold War mutually assured destruction (MAD) was the sole method of deterrence. In review, the threat of MAD is the optimistic stance that no country would launch a nuclear attack against the other because of the treaty of MAD. An outcome where there would be no winner was the winning treatise.
Will Saddam buy into MAD? That?s the burning question- whether Saddam Hussein can be counted upon to prescribe to the MAD school of thought. Even during the tense period of conflict in the Kashmir region late last year (disputed territory claimed by second-class nuclear powers India and Pakistan), neither side believed that the other would actually launch nuclear weapons. Are we willing to wager that Saddam Hussein will be so level headed?
What about nuclear blackmail? What would be the reaction of the United States, if say, Saddam said that there was a nuclear weapon in a major American city and it would be detonated if there was not an American withdraw from the holy sites of Islam (mainly) in Saudi Arabia. or maybe a Jewish withdrawal from the ?occupied territories? of the West Bank and Gaza. Those would be the more innocuous requests; demands could range as high as requiring that the Jews leave Israel. Clearly Saudi Arabia and Iraq are not at all close allies, but a common rallying point for the Islamic world is the presence of ?infidels? on the same ground as Islam?s holiest shrines. Saddam would only face light opposition from the Muslim world in making a threat of such grandeur. Giving major power broker status to a despot inclined to irrational behavior is a hot potato that the United States, thus far, is unwilling to handle. In the Bush Administration?s mantra on the subject, the risk of a rogue state possessing nuclear weapons is greater than an invasion where chemical or biological weapons could be used against American or Allied troops.
Leaving the situation to the United Nations is completely out of the question. Their irrelevance after a decade of being pushed around by Saddam Hussein cannot be allowed to be cleared from the table by fancy speeches. If one is to look to the last official display of UN handiwork, the conference of Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, eyebrows have to be raised as to the true intentions of the aspiring global legislature. In a highly orchestrated political theater, the UN managed to fertilize the roots for a revolution by the poor and oppressed of the Third World, against the rich West.
It is just this type of thinking that has made the UN incapable of handling this issue, which is of paramount importance. Iraq?s string of broken promises calls for the burden of action to be taken away from the United Nations. Foremost among the many questions left unanswered: Has Europolitik?s flotsam finally clogged the flow of bureaucratic power to the UN? With just this example of United Nations incompetence in mind, are we to trust the United Nations with any decisions concerning the overthrow and dismemberment of the regime of Saddam Hussein? How should the world, and particularly the United States, judge this inaction? Must one assume that, although the UN took no action when Saddam threw out the weapons inspectors for that last time in 1998, they would take some concrete action now? It is not an option to allow the UN to handle such an important issue if they clearly could not agree on relatively simple issues proposed in a kangaroo council on ?sustainable development?. After years of being flagged as a bloated and broke bureaucracy, the United Nations is toying with a future in obscurity equivalent to that of an international legislative preschool. Flaunting perpetual inaction is no way to sustain world peace. The United Nations has already removed the Security Council from the debate by a decade of inaction.
More on deterrence. For years it was said that the leaders of the great nuclear powers, the US and the former USSR, agreed long ago never to launch nuclear weapons on each other, but needed to keep the ruse alive for a myriad of reasons. Can the civilized world, absent the strongmen of the Cold War, depend upon Saddam Hussein, a man who used mustard gas on 200,000 of his own people, to be trusted with nuclear weapons?
What about Israel? Are we left to assume that Israel will be left to defend itself? As in the Gulf War, Israel was relegated to the receiving end of Iraqi aggression. Allowing a direct Israeli offense against Iraq would have splintered a tenuous UN coalition arranged by the senior George Bush. In this go around, should a shaken Saddam start sending Scuds to Jerusalem, the bullish administration of Ariel Sharon will certainly act differently than the government of Yitzhak Shamir did during the first Gulf War. Most noticeable is the silence of Israel concerning and action against Iraq. Israel, represented by the government and the press, does not want to be seen as an instigator of any actions leading to military actions against an Arab nation. Should the invasion (or whatever course of action taken against Iraq) turn sour, Israel does not want to be seen as beating the war drums; clearly that could leave American-Israel relations in a lurch. In an era when an increasing number of American Jews are questioning their own ties to a distant sliver of land, tjhe mighty pro-Israel lobby cannot afford to gamble away congressional support.
What will become of Saddam?s oil? The House of Saud has officially entered the fray and has said that they will allow the United States to use airfields for any United Nation-mandated attacks against Iraq. Perhaps the Saudi government anticipates a drop in oil prices if the Iraqi oilfields, capable of producing some five million barrels of oil a day, are allowed to enter the world at full flow. For years analysts have marked the desert kingdom as a pot ready to boil over, as an overextended kingdom attempts to cope with a growing population used to living in a highly subsidized welfare state. Many think the Saudi?s sudden interest in regime change makes them a player due to one or both of the following reasons: (1) helping establish a government to lead the newly freed Iraqi people, and/or more importantly, (2) as Iraq?s most powerful and closest neighbor, having the infrastructure required to keep the fossil fuel faucets flowing at OPEC mandated levels. Clearly Riyadh does not want a democratic state introduced next door, since Saudi Arabia is one of the most restrictive dictatorships in the Arab world.
In conclusion, leaving the argument to fester at its own course is out of the question. Any action takes on global importance, as the vacuum bottle of containment was broken on September 11, 2001. To end the ?brave new world of terrorism? requires action, ideally multilateral, but unilateral if need be. It must, however, be done, and soon.
----------------------------------------------------
Stephen A. McDonald writes for www.bigtreenews.com