The End of Containment
The End of Containment Don't be fooled by artful spinning at the State Department and in the White House press room. The United States has lost badly in its most recent confrontation with Saddam...
...And what did Saddam's weapons producers do during the three weeks when no one was watching them...
...We should act on it...
...Everyone seems willing to close his eyes and hope for the best...
...The Clinton administration has lost control of the diplomacy...
...weapons-inspection team to reduce the percentage of Americans...
...In return, we get a resumption of a weapons-inspection process that, despite the heroic efforts of the inspectors themselves, has been unable to prevent Saddam from putting together the pieces necessary to produce weapons of mass destruction, especially of the chemical and biological varieties...
...The United States has lost badly in its most recent confrontation with Saddam Hussein...
...team...
...We hope the president and his advisers will begin to rethink their capitulation and prepare for the coming crisis...
...And unfortunately, it seems not to be to many Republicans in Congress...
...The administration has already acceded to one of Saddam Hussein's demands: Only four American inspectors are returning to Iraq as part of the U.N...
...Even with the inspectors back in, it will be more difficult than ever to know just how close Saddam may be to having the ability to rain unspeakable horrors on U.S...
...But the key point is this: The details of the deal are almost incidental...
...The deal worked out by President Clinton's new special negotiator, Russian foreign minister Yevgeny Primakov, will give Saddam just about everything he wants: assurances from the international community that it will hasten the lifting of sanctions imposed after the Gulf War...
...But there is an alternative: to open our eyes, to do more than sit and wait for the next crisis, and to shift fundamentally the direction of U.S...
...Containment is no longer enough...
...And we hope that Republicans rouse themselves from their post-Cold War torpor and see the Iraqi threat for what it is...
...Said President Clinton, "This is not just a replay of the Gulf War...
...In this issue, we publish three articles suggesting how this strategy might be implemented—how we might lead rather than follow our coalition partners, how we might go about supporting a political opposition in Iraq, and how the job of removing Saddam might be accomplished militarily...
...Rather than try to contain Saddam, a strategy that has failed, our policy should now aim to remove him from power by any and all means necessary...
...a loosening of restraints on Iraq's ability to sell oil to buy food...
...Four weeks ago, there were six...
...As events of the last few weeks have proven, the overall policy of containing the Iraqi menace is on the verge of a complete collapse...
...For even a return to the status quo ante is no longer acceptable...
...policy toward Saddam...
...That ought to be intolerable...
...Saddam has paid no price at all for his behavior...
...This is about the security of the 21st century and the problems everybody is going to have to face dealing with chemical weapons...
...This is the truth...
...The alternative to bending to Saddam's wishes is to open another jagged chasm in the coalition...
...Clinton officials ludicrously insist they have achieved their goal of a return to the status quo ante...
...But it isn't to the Clinton administration...
...As the Clinton administration itself has been shouting to the world these past few days, Saddam may well be about to acquire the weapons that will put him back in the driver's seat in the Middle East...
...The Clinton administration claims not to be a party to the Russian deal, but this sounds like doublespeak...
...and a recomposition of the U.N...
...The Gulf War coalition is split wide open, and it's just a matter of time before the sanctions are lifted and Saddam is back in business...
...If we continue along the present course, within a year we are likely to see Saddam shake off his already rusting chains and become once again the international danger that he was before the Gulf War...
...We hope this stimulates a wider discussion of the appropriate political, military, and diplomatic means of deposing Saddam...
...troops, in the Middle East...
...But they have not—because momentum now exists for further deterioration of that status quo...
...Expect more concessions to follow in the weeks and months ahead...
...allies, or U.S...
...Perhaps more of a danger...
Vol. 3 • December 1997 • No. 12
