War in the Gulf
Cohen, Mitchell & Barkan, Joanne
At our fall meeting the Dissent board held a discussion on the Middle East crisis and, as usual, there were disagreements. Below we print two contrasting opinions by editors. These short...
...Irving Hole* - FOUNDATION FOR THE STUDY OP INDEPENDENT SOCIAL IDEAS 521 Fitch Ave.* Rev Tort, Now York 10017 Maxima Phillip., FOUNDATION FOR TOE STUDY OF INDEPENDENT SOCIAL IDEAS 521 Fifth A N...
...In the absence of an adequate security pact to restrain Hussein, he could be back to spin out a grisly scenario...
...If the left equates frustration of Saddam with the U.S...
...The strategy of punitive deterrence is not without grave risks...
...Time to reconsider the suggestion made some years ago that the United States deduct from its aid whatever sums Jerusalem invests in the occupied lands, place the money in escrow, and announce that its release is contingent on Israeli withdrawal from them...
...George Bush says he is "protecting the American way of life" in the Gulf...
...While Hanoi's invasion of Cambodia was entirely illegitimate, it ended the Khmer Rouge's murderous regime...
...Joanne Barkan goes first.—Eps...
...If it hasn't already...
...Instead, Washington should be held to the very principles it now pronounces against Iraq's behavior in Kuwait—principles articulating nicely why the United States had no business doing what it did in Panama and Grenada...
...Second, the notion of collective security helps to map out a nonwar strategy — "punitive deterrence" —for resolving the Gulf crisis...
...The military security police...
...and he has double-crossed or murdered nearly everyone who has opposed him . . . or reached an agreement with him...
...The notion that an international conference could address both simultaneously and effectively is fantastic...
...These short articles were written in early November and both risk being outdated by events...
...Now the PLO embraces the seizure of territory by force and a population transfer in Kuwait...
...Saddam poses as a Third World progressive, denouncing feudal emirs...
...I care about the long-range impact of an expansionist Iraqi regime pursuing mastery in a volatile region...
...If Saddam is not Adolf Hitler, much less is he Ho Chi Minh...
...If the allies' goal is to get Iraq out of Kuwait with a reasonable security pact, the embargo has not failed yet...
...The left is generally anti-interventionist...
...1...
...They raise real security issues for Israel...
...The Likud would then have to pay Our "Lead Time" Some readers have written to ask why we printed nothing in our fall issue about the Mideast crisis...
...795 594 A Aoremina...
...But there's also a chance that the notion of collective security will have been proved viable, that the prospects for world peace will have improved—even slightly...
...With the end of the cold war, the world community has a new chance to fashion a collective and international security policy...
...It is time for the PLO to be held accountable...
...he employed chemical weapons and gas in genocidal attacks on an ethnic minority, the Kurds...
...whatever else Saddam has done, he has placed powerful weapons in the hands of Israeli hawks as they crusade against territorial compromise...
...The historical analogies are, however, false...
...But it seems to me these issues are the place to begin...
...However, anti-interventionism should not collapse into simplistic isolationism...
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...the compromisers will strike a deal...
...most of the Middle East is "Lebanized," and the instability allows Syria or Iran to assert regional dominance (Do we fight a war against one of them next...
...In any event, Washington probably doesn't want Iraq's complete collapse...
...15-Indl•Idu•1 co...
...Use of American force should, preferably, be in a multinational and sober context, with congressional approval and ignoring the war whoops of William Safire and his like...
...Throughout the last two years, Zionist peace activists sought to convince Israelis that the PLO was changing...
...Whenever he has comprised under pressure, it is only until a more propitious return engagement becomes possible...
...With this in mind he manufactures nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons, and poison gas...
...later on, he will only be stronger...
...Those who howl at comparisons between the Fiihrer and the "Rah" ("boss"), as Saddam is called in Baghdad, pronounce "No Vietnams in the Mideast" only with hypocrisy...
...This makes the outcry about the rights of oil-rich Kuwait less cynical—as long as that outcry sets a post—cold-war precedent...
...The U.S...
...I .A., Arm...
...But weighing the many factors, the risks on the side of war feel heavier...
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...Countries that don't happen to be of much strategic importance should still expect aid from the international community...
...Saddam gassed 5,500 to 7,000 Kurds in the village of Halabja in the summer of 1988...
...But how can a war in so volatile a region be surgically contained...
...Cold warriors reduced every regional conflict to an apocalypse of communists versus anticommunists, regardless of local realities...
...weapons and equipment left in Saudi Arabia to enable a rapid response to future crises...
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...Saddam has an agenda: domination of the Persian Gulf and the Arab world...
...Whatever Hanoi's purpose, I'm glad for it...
...troops and their allies...
...and, yes, I fear its dominion over a resource vital to the world...
...If these failed, at least decisions about the use of force could be collective...
...a multinational naval force in the Gulf...
...4. George Bush initially managed the crisis with intelligence, but he is not its hero...
...Just ask the Iranians, the Kurds, and the Iraqi communists...
...Do they settle problems once and for all...
...if his occupation of Kuwait stands...
...a skeleton structure of U.S...
...This makes him "understandable" to some parts of the "left...
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...His cousin...
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...Those who want war to eliminate the threat of Hussein avoid discussing these scenarios...
...I say 90 percent because both occupations should end...
...The notion of collective security helps to clarify the Gulf crisis in two ways...
...The left should not think like neoconservatives, only substituting "imperialism versus anti-imperialism" for "communism versus anticommunism...
...a leader no less dangerous than Hussein takes power in Iraq—or in what is left of Iraq...
...Since George Bush has never pressed hard enough for shared costs (after all, they imply shared control), this probably won't happen...
...spot checks of Iraq's nuclear and military installations conducted by international observers...
...Hussein invades Jordan to draw Israel into the war...
...invasions of Panama and Grenada, it undermines its own credibility in opposing future Panamas and Grenadas...
...Kuwait was occupied through an act of blatant aggression while it was Israel, in 1967, that was the object of aggression...
...Hussein will withdraw, taking a piece of Kuwait...
...The PLO, one notes, has never had a word to say about the fate of the Kurds...
...If an alternative policy in the Gulf has some chance of success, can we justify going to war now...
...3. A full-scale invasion of Iraq is not only a bad idea, it is a dangerous one...
...They often assume that the war will be relatively short and easy...
...The destruction of Iraq's military capability becomes the central goal (toppling Hussein's regime is sometimes added, sometimes not...
...His son-in-law...
...6. While linkage ought to be rejected, the Palestinian problem should not be placed on a diplomatic back burner, as Yitzhak Shamir would like...
...Here's the explanation, which holds for similar problems with other issues...
...If Bush deserves credit, it is for handling the consequences of his own administration's ill-conceived policies: serious investigation is required to specify to what extent American behavior in the Gulf after the Iran-Iraq war created preconditions for Iraqi aggression and circumstances in which the United States has no really good options...
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...They believe the coalition will eventually have to use military force, but they're willing to wait...
...Some claim that the embargo will never drag Iraq out of Kuwait...
...Of course, if we had the resources, it would be nice to appear more frequently.—Ens...
...he is responsible for tens of thousands of Kurdish refugees, has resettled thousands forcibly, and has destroyed scores of Kurdish villages—all while espousing Palestinian self-determination...
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...The international coalition works out a security pact to be implemented after Saddam Hussein withdraws completely from Kuwait...
...Therefore go after him now...
...rift...
...And if all Mideast problems are to be linked, then ought not Syria's occupation of Lebanon be raised...
...Fatah Central Committee member Abbas Zaki declared in October that the PLO was dropping its peace initiative...
...excuses for its leaders should cease...
...We try to deal with subjects that seem fundamental...
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...Iraq's dictator promotes linkage as a distracting political ploy...
...And what shall we do if public opinion in the United States is ripped apart as a hellish war drags on and the White House balks at bringing home the troops because there is always light at the end of the tunnel...
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...If he withdraws from Kuwait but retains the capacity to produce weapons of mass destruction, odds are great that several years hence a scenario even more perilous than today's will be enacted...
...a .bor...
...It could cost two billion dollars a day...
...The minister of industry...
...True, the danger of the conflict spreading is real—it is in Saddam's interest—and the consequences of military action are unpredictable...
...His half brother...
...The pact would include some of the following: an Arab or truly multinational force that protects the borders of the countries near Iraq...
...If the goal is to decimate Hussein's military capability, then the response is twofold: A war against Iraq may have consequences as bad as or worse than the problem war is supposed to solve...
...The international coalition can't WINTER • 1991 • 5 Comments and Opinions, hold, they say...
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...2. Iraq is not Vietnam...
...and given that an alternative strategy for security exists, the brutal costs of war are not justified...
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...Most people who dismiss punitive deterrence as inadequate vote instead for war...
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...Violations of international law would be met first with collective forms of nonviolent coercion...
...Not mentioned is the fact that Saladin was a Kurd and would probably have been gassed by Saddam...
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...In the desert, the army continues to dig in for war, but Hussein flails about in search of negotiations...
...Time for a change, but not one that further batters Israeli moderates...
...Military aims should be limited to ending the occupation of Kuwait and destroying by air power Saddam's lethal resources...
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...I don't believe that...
...It should become a focus of attention once the Gulf is settled...
...Second, real security outside the Gulf region will require energy conservation to shrink oil consumption—and not just ready access to oil at stable prices...
...Bind them and neither will be solved...
...It should be...
...But success will take time...
...But again: the consequences of Saddam with nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons five years hence are more worrisome...
...Those who put war on the agenda use three different arguments...
...10-1-90 I ft...
...This does not, by any means, legitimize permanent Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza...
...Former enemies can now collaborate to decrease the likelihood of war by increasing the effectiveness of other kinds of pressure...
...Its agenda is pursued unhindered...
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...Who knows but that as readers look over these pages a few months from now, battles may be raging in the desert...
...factories lack raw materials...
...But it should...
...There are shortages of tires and spare parts...
...should not invade Iraq...
...some say the military has short supplies of food and cigarettes...
...This description of punitive deterrence needs two footnotes...
...The third argument for war takes quite a different tack...
...Diplomacy and embargo are, of course, the optimal means of solving this crisis...
...But it is very difficult to imagine their success...
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...Saladin and Saddam 6 • DISSENT Comments and Opinions do come from the same town, Talcrit...
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...Since the Likud, its chief component, aims to ingest the occupied territories, it really has nothing to negotiate with the Palestinians...
...he might try to destroy Israel...
...Hostilities might temporarily cut off all oil exports from the region, precipitating a world economic crisis...
...and regional negotiations to settle long-standing disputes over oil fields and access to the Persian Gulf...
...Ga on...
...He aspires to be a new Saladin, facing down the West...
...Israel's right-wing government is composed of fundamentalists—some nationalist, others religious—and they are no less responsible for the failure of peace efforts than the PLO...
...power turbines can't be repaired...
...He'll create havoc in the entire Middle East...
...to 1.....9.10...
...Saddam has a record—a consistent one...
...f r,o...
...Arafat dealt a fierce blow to Israeli moderates...
...Given Saddam's agenda and history, what are the consequences if he is not fettered now...
...The puerile pieties that have, in the current crisis, landed some liberals and radicals in the same camp as Patrick Buchanan and Jean-Marie Le Pen should be rejected...
...On the other hand, directly linking the Arab-Israeli problem to the Gulf crisis—after Saddam has invaded Kuwait, threatened to use gas and chemical weapons against Israel, and has been embraced by the PLO—will only reelect the Likud...
...payment of reparations by Iraq, to be enforced by further sanctions...
...the Kurds rise up to demand a homeland...
...44...
...in an explosion of regional war, the coalition against Iraq breaks apart, and many Arab states unite against the United States and Israel...
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...No time limit is set...
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...there must be some perspective in an increasingly interdependent and complicated post—cold war world, one in which wild cards are aplenty...
...The same goes for Jerusalem...
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...JOANNE BARKAN Six Middle East Knots: Saddam Hussein is not Adolf Hitler...
...Islamic and Arab nationalist movements sweep aside moderate regimes...
...The newly appointed governor of occupied Kuwait...
...Behind-the-scenes mediations continue...
...Others who also believe the embargo is doomed want war as soon as possible...
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...and the government is desperate for cash...
...5. Resolution of the Gulf crisis should not be tied directly to the Arab-Israeli conflict...
...Anyone who understands the Mideast—which immediately excludes Ramsay Clark—knows not to make such simplistic analogies...
...SATE.N4 8 • DISSENT Comments and Opinions penny for penny for its ambitions...
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...Several weeks go by between the completion of our editorial work and the printing of an issue— what is known as "lead time...
...In any event, Saddam's anti-imperialist rhetoric is simply a cover for his own regional imperialism...
...no o...
...Just wars, inevitable wars, alternatives to war— can they be sorted out as we think our way through to a position on the Gulf crisis...
...q WINTER • 1991 • 9...
...Does anyone believe that, save for Israel, Iraq wouldn't have invaded Kuwait...
...limits on arms sales to Iraq, including war planes, missile technology, and delivery systems...
...And the brutal repression of Kurdish national aspirations by Iraq...
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...First, the so-called multinational force now in Saudi Arabia should be made genuinely multinational...
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...To those who opt for war because the embargo won't work, it's reasonable to respond that the embargo seems to be eating away slowly at the Iraqi economy and war machine...
...And he seized Kuwait, where he is engaged in a population "transfer" that outdoes Arik Sharon's proposals for Palestinians...
...Indefinite reliance on them will likely result in a long-term, massive American military presence in the Gulf—another bad idea...
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...Iran would be left as the Gulf's dominant power...
...aggression will be rewarded...
...Direct linkage will strengthen only Baghdad and Israeli rightists...
...To liken Iraq's seizure of Kuwait to Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza is 90 percent specious...
...There is indeed a Vietnam analogy that has some force...
...Because we work with a part-time staff and because of technical reasons, we cannot as a rule deal with late-breaking news...
...he started an eight-year war with Iran costing a million lives...
...09.rt.rly ' " 4 3..,..11....• ft...
...if he continues to develop his lethal stockpile...
...Are there any sturdy principles to grab hold of...
...A minority would pull out all foreign troops, leaving the Gulf region to stew in its juices...
...Another half brother...
...First, it puts the international response to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in a context that applies to any serious infraction of international law...
...When close to a million soldiers face off in the desert, when almighty oil is at stake, phrases like "international cooperation" and "world peace" sound disingenuous...
...11 , 100 10 , 100 1 corov Otat Ike 1...o...
...Yet it must be recognized that things are much more complicated because of Iraqi brutality and Palestinian embrace of it...
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...But that's a risk a quarterly must take...
...he implied that recognition of Israel had been merely a creature of circumstances anyway...
...The strategy looks like this: • The embargo against Iraq continues, backed up by a multinational force...
...The latter will tell fellow citizens: how can we make concessions to the WINTER • 1991 • 7 Comments and Opinions Arabs when Iraqi aggression is rewarded with pressure on us...
...Do wars produce neat victories...
...it is Nasser's behavior then that ought to be compared with Saddam's behavior now...
...Yet who is chief of his political police...
...He runs a vicious police state and champions a fierce Pan-Arabist chauvinism...
...But I don't care...
...Most military analysts now expect this Gulf war to be fought, at least in part, on the ground and with much bloodshed...
...Countries other than the United States should pay a much bigger chunk of the bill—in money, war materiel, and troops...
...One need not approve of America's reckless and selfish energy nonpolicy, let alone Big Oil, to recognize that control of a substantial amount of the globe's petroleum by Baghdad's dictator is a bad idea...
...He is Saddam Hussein, and that is quite enough...
...N.Y...
...Besides, we don't imagine readers turn to Dissent for the latest news or analysis of it...
...Neither, I suspect, does he...
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...Suppose that Iran, Syria, and Turkey jump into a war to pursue their territorial interests, carving up parts of Iraq and whatever else is at hand...
...The United Nations assesses reparations to be paid by Iraq to all injured parties...
...desperate, he unleashes his chemical arsenal on Israel and on U.S...
...For him, what is good for Iraq is good for the region...
...According to this position, unless the war machine is smashed now, Hussein will be back in a few years with nuclear arms, missiles with chemical warheads, and biological weapons...
Vol. 38 • January 1991 • No. 1
