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COMMENTARY
January 22, 2003
An old movie
The French have just taught the Americans a lesson in imperial manners: "You do what you have to do and you don't wait for permission." By mounting a diplomatic ambush at the United Nations in cooperation with the Germans they are making a last-ditch effort to hamstring the Bush administration over Iraq and on the eve of war. The French foreign minister Dominique de Villepin played all his cards by threatening in advance to veto any U.S. attempt to get the Security Council to enforce the unanimously-approved Resolution 1441; and by promising to lead European diplomatic opposition to unilateral U.S. action. In a theatrical press conference he topped this off with a demand to give the farcical inspection effort of Hans Blix an indefinite amount of time and spoke condescendingly about U.S. "impatience". President George W. Bush promptly and indeed impatiently rejected this advice. His impromptu words were Surely our friends have learned lessons from the past. ... This looks like a rerun of a bad movie and I'm not interested in watching. His State Department which successfully argued within the administration to put the matter before the U.N. in the first place now rallied behind Mr. Bush's "hard line". Colin Powell the secretary of state departed from a prepared speech on the dangers of terrorism to hector his European allies using variants of the phrase "we must not shrink" four times. His Sancho Panza Richard Armitage took to the airwaves with a similar message in which the code word was "guts". If nothing else the French had just pulled the rug under them. The U.S. policy of going to the U.N. last September instead of directly to Baghdad is now a shambles. The position Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney took against this at the time has now been fully vindicated. You take the battle to your enemy when you want a resolution; you go to the U.N. when you want to swim in molasses. The French do not believe what they preach. They hardly stopped off at the U.N. on their way into the Ivory Coast where they recently sent troops to rescue French citizens and save a client regime. Their opposition to U.S. action in Iraq has nothing to do with principles but rather with politics and fear. In the first case the long wait for action has given European public opinion the chance to settle into opposition to war and the French government's position is where the votes are. The second case is more crucial. Across Europe security services are working desperately against the likelihood of a major "Islamist" terrorist hit most likely with ricin or anthrax. Traces of such substances are being found all over the switchboards are crowded with tips and the English are now even entering mosques to make arrests. The fear is that U.S. entry into Iraq could trigger these hits. And here is the logical knot the Europeans are in. Either Saddam Hussein is connected with terror international or he is not. If he is not Europe has no reason to worry. But since they know he is their worries are well-founded. Europe will indeed be under increased threat when the Americans go into Iraq; as will be the U.S. itself and U.S. and allied military forces around the world -- as we were again reminded in Kuwait on Monday. This is an old story a rerun of a bad movie . Either we are going to the source of the terror or we are not. If we are going there will be casualties. There are people -- clear majorities in most countries outside the U.S. -- who believe because they want to believe that routine defensive police work can end the menace of terrorism and constrain terror regimes with genocidal weapons. The belief is na?ve to the point of silly; and the danger accumulates while we delay. In the Middle East where regimes are more acquainted with the Bush administration's resolve owing to the quickly growing presence of U.S. encampments and aircraft carrier groups (I am told one cannot look out into the Gulf now without seeing a U.S. Navy vessel though most are out of view beyond the Strait of Hormuz) the fear is different. Saddam has been written off and the struggle is to prevent some kind of open democracy from being established by the U.S. in his stead. The House of Saud has been frenetically active with its deep reserves of cash in trying to effect some coup or other arrangement whereby Saddam can be replaced by another duplicitous tyrant -- whom the Americans might leave alone. They and other regimes in the region are terrified by the prospect of a "Karzai Iraq" which will inspire their domestic opponents to dream that their days may be numbered too. Since we are discussing fear my own is that the U.S. will stumble into just this "middle way". According to my information there are several hundred U.S. special forces already exploring Iraq on the ground (and have been since August) with help from the anti-Saddam underground. Their orders would be almost certainly to assassinate Saddam if they can locate him. Mr. Rumsfeld has now mused aloud about the good fortune if they might succeed or if Saddam could instead be persuaded (against his known psychological profile) to take his senior officials with him into exile. Make no mistake war is horrible and it is worth cutting a few corners to save many thousands of lives. But we have to look grittily at the larger picture. As in the circumstances above (the immediate terror threat to Europe) the choice is not between peace and war but between lives now or more lives later. No asinine peace demonstration will ever wrestle with such hard questions. For what if Saddam's regime with regional and internal help does collapse before the U.S. and its handful of loyal allies invade? On the face of it a much cheaper solution in human lives. But the longer-term effect on the "war against terrorism" would be disastrous especially if it happens in such a way to prevent U.S. troops from formally occupying the country. I hesitate to write the following but I'm afraid it is the plain truth. Someone has to say it and it might as well be said crudely. Iraq's neighbours need a humbling display of Yankee firepower right in their backyard before they'll do much about Islamist fanaticism. A failure to invade Iraq after the invasion has been signalled will confirm to the West 's most lethal enemies that the U.S. is a paper tiger shrinking from risk. Without something resembling a war and therefore a victor there can be no dictating terms. The net effect of such an "easy way out" would be to take most of the pressure off the other fanatic regimes and help them focus it where they want it on Israel instead. And the result of that can only be a much larger catastrophe further down the road in which the U.S. could find itself fighting with even fewer allies directly for the survival of some five million Jews on the enemy's choice of battlefields. The U.S. has drawn a line in the sand -- the cliche is apposite. And the world is watching to see if the U.S. will back away. We are back in Sudetenland an old movie. David Warren
© Ottawa Citizen
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