Small World

Jewish World Review / Nov. 12, 1998 /23 Mar-Cheshvan, 5759

The Middle East peace process is alive, but the challenge to Saddam is dead? Time to get with the program, Bubba!

By Amos Perlmutter

ONCE AGAIN THE U.S. IS CONTEMPLATING air strikes against Iraq. It is the credibility of the United States that is on the line.

This time what one administration official is quoted as saying is "diplomacy backed by meetings" should come to an end. On March 23, 1998 Henry Kissinger wrote for the Los Angeles Times syndicate a column titled "Our Shilly-Shally 'Strategy' on Saddam". Indeed, Dr. Kissinger was correct.

UN-U.S. sanctions have been playing to Saddam's advantage. He attacks the sanctions regime as detrimental to the Iraqi people, while in fact employing his resources not to feed his people but his arsenal. Iraq has requested "a comprehensive review" of its compliance with UN sanctions, and soon enough rejected it. Even Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov considered this attitude as "inexplicable".

The administration's need for a coalition to go to war is unrealistic and phony. The Clinton administration, in the last two years, has received clear messages from the French, Chinese, and especially our so-called allies, the Russians, that they will not approve any UN security resolution on the use of force. The administration statements that "all options are open" have been repeated to a point where Saddam Hussein no longer takes them seriously. The so-called threats have been no more than a signal to Saddam that he can continue to defy the U.S. and UN, and successfully build his arsenal of weapons of mass destruction. As Henry Kissinger concluded in his commentary, "Inevitably, Saddam Hussein emerged from the crisis in a politically and psychologically strengthened position."

How should the administration deal with Saddam Hussein now? It's high time for them to be honest with Congress and the American people. The administration must declare that, since the United Nations and our allies are unwilling to join us in a coalition to impose severe sanctions upon Saddam and sustain the collapsing UNSCOM regime, there is no other way short of continued humiliation to confront Saddam with the kind of action he understands.

I speak of severe military action.

The destruction of the arsenal is tantamount to the end of the Saddam regime, for he and his weapons are symbiotic. We must conceive of a surprise attack on Saddam.

We know from the inspectors and other Middle Eastern intelligence services exactly where the arsenal is hidden. We must study carefully all the so-called palaces and other strategic military and weapons production facilities, and use surgical strikes to destroy all or most of them.

The argument given by strategists is that the air attack on Iraq in 1991 was not really successful, as it did not either destroy the greater part of Saddam's arsenal or his regime. Nor have more recent disparate missile attacks changed his behavior. Those in the administration that argue that UNSCOM has succeeded in eliminating more of Saddam's arsenal than the war did are quite correct, and UNSCOM should be awarded the highest accolades for what its superb accomplishments.

But UNSCOM has become hostage to Saddam's chicaneries.

Therefore, with us knowing more than ever about the locations and methods of production through UNSCOM and other intelligence services, we must end the operation and free ourselves to do what we failed to do in 1991.

How to go about it is the job of the Joint Chiefs and the intelligence services. Nothing will be fulfilled, however, without presidential will and persistence. The president realizes -- or by now should realize -- that the diplomatic option is over. The only solution remaining is, despite the president's reluctance, is to employ brutal, accurate air power. He must bite the bullet because the only way to destroy Saddam Hussein's regime is to destroy his arsenal.

What will the political, diplomatic, and military consequences be of an American failure to deal with Saddam militarily: 1) It will destabilize American credibility in the area.

It is true that the Saudis and the Gulf States are opposed to an American-led coalition war, but it is also true that they are shaking in their boots about Saddam and that unofficially they know American credibility is not of great value.

2) It will affect the Israel-Palestine peace process by turning the before-Wye American formula upside down.

The argument of the Arab leaders, after all, has been that as long as there was no movement in the peace process, Saddam could not be punished without punishing Netanyahu equally. Now the reverse is true. The peace process is alive and the challenge to Saddam is dead.

It is high time for the United States to insist that the most serious problem in the Middle East is no longer the peace process but Saddam Hussein.

Secretary Cohen's shuttle diplomacy in an effort to recreate the 1991 coalition against Saddam is an exercise in futility. Since there is no reason to believe that an Iraqi opposition group is capable of bringing an end to Saddam's regime, supporting such a group is not a substitute for real action. Since 1991 we have learned that diplomacy and sanctions, in and of themselves, do not work. No diplomacy will be successful without the credible and sustaining use of force.

Only sustained, precise American military action is .


JWR contributor Amos Perlmutter, a professor of political science and sociology at American University, is editor of the Journal of Strategic Studies. His numerous books on Middle East affairs include Two Minutes Over Baghdad (Corgi, 1983).

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01/01/98: Saddam's Predictable Defiance

©1998, Amos Perlmutter