Editorial The least-bad solution
Steinfels, Margaret O'Brien
The least-bad solution Amilitary confrontation between the United States and Iraq has been narrowly averted-at least for now. Iraq has agreed to readmit American inspectors along with the rest of...
...There are no good answers to the problem posed by Saddam Hussein's control of fearsome weaponry...
...Furthermore, it should be noted that the U.S...
...Containing that danger will continue to require firm leadership from the U.S...
...But when the United States responded by sending two aircraft carriers, 300 combat planes, and twenty warships to the Gulf, France and Russia put their economic interests aside and urged Hussein to back down...
...interests in the Middle East, but Iraq's refusal to destroy and fully account for its weapons...
...In this instance, it appears that the threat of violence has forestalled the use of violence...
...will be able to forge the kind of international consensus needed to stiffen the UN's enforcement powers...
...In short, Iraq's potential threat to world peace is possibly greater now than it was before the crisis began...
...France and Russia, whose commercial interests in Iraq are significant, have been pressing for an end to the UN economic sanctions imposed on Iraq after the 1991 Gulf War...
...Whether Saddam Hussein, Iraq's tyrannical leader, has learned anything from this near calamity is dubious...
...Our old Gulf War allies appear to need some firm reminders as well...
...But some answers are better than others...
...That possibility should be pursued with every energy...
...The U.S...
...re-conaissance planes...
...Nor is there much hope that the U.S...
...from other Security Council members by expelling American weapons inspectors and threatening to shoot down U.S...
...Four weeks without UN supervision have given the Iraqis time to move materiel and equipment, considerably strengthening their hand...
...Like enforcing the nuclear nonproliferation agreements, policing the world for biological and chemical weapons will require a degree of international cooperation and resolve that seems almost Utopian...
...In return, Russia has evidently agreed to voice Iraq's interests in the Security Council...
...has rightly insisted, however, that sanctions not be lifted until Hussein's regime fully complies with the UN's resolution on weapons...
...At this juncture no fair-minded person can dispute the threat to peace and the enormous moral challenge Iraq presents to the community of nations...
...At the same time, President Bill Clinton must prepare the American people for the next showdown in the Middle East by better explaining what is at stake when a rogue nation possesses weapons of mass destruction...
...Many people of good will have urged the UN to lift the economic sanctions against Iraq because they have caused great suffering among the Iraqi people, especially children...
...Hussein evidently took the vote as a sign of UN weakness...
...Most worrisome in the immediate future is that during last month's tense standoff after Iraq's expulsion of American UN inspectors, Hussein had time to hide or destroy evidence of weapons of mass destruction as well as to assemble new stocks of chemical and biological agents...
...The most recent crisis appears to have been precipitated when France and Russia abstained from a U.S.-sponsored resolution demanding greater compliance on weapons inspections from Iraq...
...Nevertheless, it is important to emphasize that the source of this conflict is not the narrow pursuit of U.S...
...power and Arab suspicions about U.S...
...Hundreds of suspicious sites have been declared off-limits by the Iraqis...
...support for Israel are part of the diplomatic equation...
...For now, the return of UN inspectors holds out the possibility, if not the likelihood, that more drastic action can be avoided...
...Unfortunately, the danger of Iraq's biological and chemical capability remains...
...The painstaking work of the UN in tracking shipments of raw materials and scouring industrial sites is not easy, and in recent years Iraq has become much bolder in foiling efforts at detection...
...Hussein cannot be allowed to use the suffering he imposes on his own people to blackmail the international community into allowing him to resume stockpiling weapons that can kill millions, weapons that he has not hesitated to use in the past against the Iranians and the Kurds...
...Hussein hoped to divide the U.S...
...Iraq has agreed to readmit American inspectors along with the rest of the United Nations weapons inspection teams, and forestalled a certain American military response...
...What the international community has learned once again about Iraq is frightening...
...Yes, Russian and French resentment toward U.S...
...has supported purely humanitarian aid to the Iraqi people, but that until recently Hussein has refused it...
...Until the UN gains unfettered access to such places, it cannot responsibly certify that all of Hussein's biological and chemical weapons have been destroyed...
...and even greater resolution on the part of the UN...
...Saddam Hussein's determination to reconstitute his military machine is not a problem that is going to go away any time soon...
...And even now, as the situation returns to "normal," there is little to suggest that Iraq will prove more compliant with UN demands...
Vol. 124 • December 1997 • No. 21
