Let's keep bluffing
03.06.2003Britain's Tony Blair is proposing a compromise resolution to the Security Council. Hoping to gather support from a reluctant France, Russia, and China (all veto powers), the plan gives Iraq a firm deadline to disarm — two weeks. The plan is both unnecessary and potentially disastrous.
As others have suggested (Matt Welch's original National Post column is no longer online), I think Dubya's bluffing. If you look at the record, I think that's as good an assessment as any. The White House has consistently refused to set a deadline for Iraqi compliance; war plans get pushed back from January, to mid February, to early March, and now to April. We're ready to go any moment now. Seriously, we mean it. But the hammer never falls — we just keep gathering more troops, tanks, aircraft, ships.
And after each new round of Texan cowboy bravura, Hussein makes another concession. Suddenly, Iraq agrees to destroy its Al Samoud 2 missiles. Even though days previously Hussein himself denied their existence to a dumbfounded world. Hans Blix gets to announce to the UN that Iraq is cooperating just a bit more (but never quite enough). The world gives an anxious sigh of relief.
And then we turn the screws tighter. The mantra of "regime change" became a staple only in the last few months — only taken seriously after the last state-of-the-union address. About a month ago the Pentagon announced that Hussein & his immediate circle were legitimate targets during any military action. Last week, the White House announced that it wouldn't just target Hussein in a war — it would ensure he didn't survive. And after each raising of the bar, Hussein's government releases a few more of the documents Blix has asked for all these months.
The French & Germans proposed "aggressive inspections". Well, what do you call the past three months if not aggressive? Unwittingly or not, Blix is playing good cop to Bush's bad cop.
What most makes me believe Bush is bluffing is this: each ratcheting of the rhetoric is accompanied w/ an exit strategy. Sitting in the comfort of his oval office sofa, Bush flippantly proposed Hussein go into safe exile — immune from US or other persecution. Hussein now has several options, including an invitation from the small Italian town of Soveria Manneli.
War — something I don't think anyone wants — can still be averted. But not at the cost of allowing Hussein to keep torturing & brutalizing his own people & threatening international stability.
And that's why I think the British compromise is dangerous. It's unnecessary because the eighteen previous Security Council resolutions on Iraq already authorize force (at least technically). It's dangerous because the strategy of keeping an ever-looming credible threat on the horizon is working. A real deadline might force our hand. I'd rather keep upping the ante until Hussein folds.
Posted by Miguel at 03:20 PM
Comments
I think a more accurate reading of the painstaking wording of the Bush administration's evolving positions is that the closer the USA gets to readiness for military action... the more narrow the demands for action by Saddam become. Now that the USA is ready for military action I really don't think there is anyway Saddam could deal short of unconditional surrender... which is after all, the stated intention of the Bush administration, eg. regime change, and the Clinton administration prior.
Posted by: DANEgerus at March 12, 2003 03:44 PM
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