Start a War? No, End One.
"Iraq appears not to have come to a genuine acceptance, not even today, of the disarmament which was demanded of it and which it needs to carry out to win the confidence of the world and to live in peace," Hans Blix told the U.N. Security Council this morning. This should settle the matter. Resolution 1441, which the council approved in November, affords Saddam Hussein a "final opportunity" to comply with U.N. demands. Saddam has rejected this opportunity. His desultory moves in the direction of compliance are insufficient, for there's no room for compromise here: Under the terms of not just 1441 but all the preceding U.N. resolutions, peace requires full compliance.
Does this mean war? Not exactly. It's a misconception that the decision now facing America and the U.N. is whether to go to war with Iraq. The U.S. and the U.N. are already at war with Iraq, and they have been for 12 years. There was no surrender or peace treaty that ended the Gulf War; instead, the allies accepted a cease-fire predicated upon Iraq's compliance with a series of demands, embodied in various U.N. resolutions, concerning disarmament, human rights, sanctions, reparations to Kuwait, repatriation of war criminals, etc. These restrictions are supposed to be temporary: Baghdad's compliance was to restore both peace and Iraq's sovereignty.
Saddam Hussein's failure to comply with the U.N. demands has turned the Gulf War into a 12-year-long cold war. America must now decide whether to prolong the war or to end it--and the only realistic way of ending it is regime change, which will probably require military conquest.
Iraq could have ended the war by complying in full with the U.N. resolutions, and President Bush generously went out of his way to keep this possibility open. (The U.N. could also end the war by dropping its demands and normalizing relations with Iraq--probably the outcome France and Germany would like--but that is not a realistic option. The U.S. would veto any such move in the Security Council on the sensible grounds that a fully sovereign Saddam would be as much of a menace as he was in 1990.)
So we're left with the choice of finishing the war by conquering Iraq and installing a new government, or prolonging it by maintaining the status quo of inspectors, sanctions and isolation. To be sure, the risks of combat should never be taken lightly, and the approach the U.N. has taken over the past 12 years has constrained Saddam's ability to carry out aggression beyond his borders. Yet the case for ending the war is overwhelming, for the status quo is a disaster in both humanitarian and geopolitical terms.
Except for the Kurds living in the semiautonomous north, the Iraqi people continue to suffer under the rule of one of the world's most brutal and oppressive dictators. Making matters worse are the U.N. sanctions, which, though designed to choke Saddam economically, actually have the effect of impoverishing the people of Iraq while Saddam uses "humanitarian" oil-for-food money to build palaces and weapons. Those on the "antiwar" side chance upon a partial truth when they complain about the sanctions, though of course in their view anti-American dictators can do no wrong, so Iraqis' suffering is entirely America's fault. Yet while Saddam bears the primary blame, America is at least partially culpable for having allowed his regime to remain in power for as long as it has.
The unfinished conflict with Iraq has implications far beyond its own boundaries. It aggravates all the region's other problems, including terrorism. At the root of all these problems is the misrule and tyranny that prevail in all Arab and most Muslim countries. The need to contain a hostile Iraq makes it harder for America to deal forthrightly with other dictatorships, especially Saudi Arabia, that are both oppressive and in many ways anti-American. America is arguably the biggest supporter of dictatorial regimes in the Middle East--not because we want to be but on the principle that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. The fewer enemies you have, the easier it is to hold your friends to high standards. Thus victory in Iraq serves the interest of regionwide democratic reform.
If oppression breeds terrorism, so do various other anti-American grievances in the Arab and Muslim worlds, all of which have to do with the Iraq conflict. For whatever it's worth, Osama bin Laden's biggest complaint is that "infidel" U.S. troops are stationed on Saudi "holy land"--a military presence whose only purpose is to protect our friends the Saudis from Saddam, and which could easily be withdrawn if America had bases in a friendly Iraq. Another frequent Arab and Muslim complaint is the suffering of the Iraqi people under sanctions--but again, this is part and parcel of the unfinished war. Regime change in Baghdad would obviate the need for sanctions.
Then there is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It would be fatuous to suggest that liberating Iraq would be sufficient to solve this problem, but there are excellent reasons to think it would have a meliorative effect. Even if he's not a major backer of al Qaeda, there's no question that Saddam provides both financial support and safe haven to Palestinian terrorists. Perhaps even more important, a defiant Saddam is a powerful symbol for Palestinian extremists; witness the passionate pro-Saddam protests in the Palestinian territories in both 1990-91 and 2002-03. Saddam's overthrow is likely to have a sobering effect on the Palestinians, as did his partial defeat in the Gulf War, soon after which the first intifada ended and Yasser Arafat went to the negotiating table.
There's one more important reason to end the war without delay: America has staked its credibility on Resolution 1441, which expressly states this is Saddam's "final opportunity" for full compliance. Backing down or temporizing would hurt America's standing in the world by giving the impression that our word is not to be taken seriously.
One may argue that it was a mistake to issue this threat. Twenty-three senators and 133 House members actually took this position, voting in October against a new declaration of war. But among the voices now urging inaction are the government of France, which voted for Resolution 1441, and several members of Congress who voted for the war resolution, most prominently presidential candidate John Kerry. Having assented to a threat against Saddam Hussein, they now demand that America not carry it out. This position is not antiwar; it is pro-quagmire. The time has come to end this war.
Discussion Zen 5 Speculation (EPYC Turin and Strix Point/Granite Ridge - Ryzen 9000)
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