U.N. Paralysis
RODMAN, PETER W.
U.N. Paralysis by Peter W. Rodman John Kennedy was hailed for his triumph in the Cuban missile crisis. Only later was it understood that he had secretly promised the Soviets the quid pro quo they...
...A cardinal principle of Minister Primakov's foreign policy is to reduce American "hegemony" in the world...
...Presumably all this will be on the Security Council agenda...
...Charter acknowledges the inherent right of individual and collective self-defense...
...The administration will plead that it lacked international backing...
...The media made much of Secretary Albright's "failure" to secure Arab support for military action on her recent trip...
...a U.N...
...But Saddam's weapons technicians were still at work...
...Security Council can be a means to an end...
...Saddam will get credit for this in the Arab world, boosting his prestige as a champion of the Palestinians...
...Instead of being penalized for his stunt, he has been paid off...
...Then there is the dramatically advertised further erosion of the international coalition that once resisted Saddam...
...And Fidel, of course, is still with us, 35 years later...
...Only later was it understood that he had secretly promised the Soviets the quid pro quo they had asked for—removal of U.S...
...This is an administration that worships the United Nations and "multilateralism...
...response—instead of rejecting this linkage— was a startling anti-israel speech by Madeleine Albright at the economic forum in Qatar...
...Thus, it should have been no surprise that preserving the Security Council consensus became the be-all and end-all...
...the United States had already telegraphed its agreement to most of them...
...inspection...
...Did our Arab friends claim that they have been inhibited in supporting us because of Israeli recalcitrance in the peace process...
...This time, however, the negotiating bazaar was open...
...Despite tough talk about "keeping military options open," the administration's preoccupation was pursuit of a diplomatic solution—first in the U.N...
...This is not the end of it...
...A destabilizing precedent...
...there was no question to which we did not already have the answer...
...Coalition-building in the U.N...
...Security Council, then via the Russian mediation...
...American decisiveness has a similar effect in the Arab world...
...Time was not on our side...
...None of us, of course, knows the content of her conversations...
...The United States has let it be known that it will not oppose Security Council reexamination of the composition and scope of UNSCOM...
...The U.S...
...It clung to a mystical faith in economic sanctions and diplomatic procedures, delaying for two weeks the dispatch of a second aircraft carrier and additional land-based aircraft...
...For three weeks, the buzzword in Washington was "ratcheting up sanctions...
...George Bush used Security Council resolutions skillfully—they helped broaden the coalition and win votes in the (then-Democratic-controlled) U.S...
...domination" of the U.N...
...permission to act...
...Needless to say, the Russians gain too in the Middle East—demonstrating their ability to shield rogue states from American pressure, proving they can deliver diplomatic results at American expense...
...Bush also understood the paradox of American unilateralism...
...An image of absolute determination to act unilaterally has a galvanizing effect on other nations...
...History is, of course, an understanding judge—but such an excuse would surpass historians' understanding...
...Special Commission (UNSCOM...
...missiles in Turkey—and acquiesced in the restoration of the Soviet-Cuban military alliance...
...Article 51 of the U.N...
...If we break free of the Security Council, they lose all influence over us...
...It was a tortuous process, while with every passing day Saddam's technicians were accelerating their work on designing biological and chemical warheads for upgraded SCUD missiles, freed from the pesky constraints of U.N...
...Peter W. Rodman is director of national-security programs at the Nixon Center for Peace and Freedom and a senior editor of National Review...
...The United States indicated that it was open to expanding the scope of the oil-for-food arrangements...
...Diplomacy was a substitute for action, advocated by those most eager to block the kind of military response that had the best chance of compelling a truly unconditional Iraqi climb-down...
...Whatever the claims about Saddam Hussein's "unconditional" capitulation, the outlines of our compromise with him are now apparent...
...Poor Tariq Aziz: barred from doing his Christmas shopping in London this year...
...Congress...
...Their public dissociation meant not that they disagreed with us, but that they lacked confidence in us...
...If they saw Saddam as the likely winner, their appeasement reflex was bound to operate...
...President Clinton has emulated President Kennedy in many areas—his response to an aggressor may prove another...
...The whole sanctions issue will now be reopened in the Security Council, with the Russians and the French insisting on some sort of timetable for relaxation...
...Then we invited in the Russians...
...Saddam's rejection of the U.N...
...Even in Haiti in 1994, the administration insisted on a Security Council blessing...
...Our unconditional deference to the Security Council reduced our leverage, leaving a brokered compromise the inevitable outcome...
...These are Saddam's diplomatic gains...
...We could have—and I believe Bush would have—gone to war without Security Council "authorization...
...But Bush never imagined that we needed U.N...
...But it is a certainty that our Arab friends are terrified of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction and desperately want us to protect them...
...It was a confused and self-defeating American policy that let three weeks go by before any significant augmentation of naval and air forces in the Gulf...
...Saddam had denounced U.S...
...cover over us as a claim on our duty to consult in the future...
...The Iraqis say the Russians also promised to seek an end to U-2 flights and inspection of presidential palaces...
...This is the same Primakov whose attempted intervention in 1991 was deflected by George Bush as the unfriendly obstructionism it was...
...Russian foreign minister Yevgeny Primakov gave Saddam a variety of reassurances...
...The dictator comes out far ahead of where he began...
...mandate was clear at the outset...
...Given Russian and French objections to military action, the administration was stymied—uncomfortable in the first place with the use of force and even more allergic to acting without Security Council endorsement...
...In the new context—the disastrous hiatus of UNSCOM, the accelerating erosion of the economic-sanctions regime—we are weaker...
...ban on travel by Iraqi officials...
...and Russia (an energy exporter) could not care less whether the West's energy lifeline falls into Saddam's grip...
...Those (say, on the Security Council) who don't like American military action are given an interest in going along: If they see us as implacably charging ahead, they are better off throwing some U.N...
...it was in the American interest to bring matters quickly to a head...
...The Clinton administration had its priorities backwards from the outset...
...Saddam wanted assurances on the easing of economic sanctions, even before his full compliance with the ban on weapons of mass destruction...
...It permitted a series of redundant diplomatic overtures to a rigid Saddam...
...Thus, the absurd utterance by State Department spokesman Jamie Rubin on November 10: "With each passing day that he refuses to let these inspections do the job, he's only hurting himself"— referring to the imminence of...
...More ominous are the advances his weapons technicians have made in secret during the three-week hiatus of UNSCOM—advances that the inspectors will never be able to undo...
...Why this outcome...
Vol. 3 • December 1997 • No. 12
