Containment versus Pre-emptive Deterrence and Regime Change: 3/22/2003
http://www.washingtondispatch.com/article_4813.shtml
This past week, in The British House of Commons, an insulting little man named Cook asserted that had Al Gore been sworn in as President, the world would not now be facing the prospect of war in the Middle East.
Poor Mister Cook was defending the policy of containment through inspections. Containment without muscle on the ground to back it up when dealing with a despotic demon like Saddam Hussein is a fool’s errand … or worse, an exercise in delayed suicide, for expedience sake. But that’s what appeasement and postponement have usually meant.
Aside from the bitter irrationality of raising the United States elections as an excuse for Saddam’s twelve-year defiance of agreed to terms in the 1991 cease-fire, and aside from the irrationality of implying different tactics of a failed politician from two previous terms in office, this alcoholic Brit points to an issue that should be addressed, immediately, before the obstructionists in America gain further traction with this foolishness.
What of containment, the Clinton administration’s chosen policy toward Iraq and terrorism? Has it worked? Would it work as a future policy in a worldwide war against terrorism by fanatical Islamicists? For Chirac and too many American politicians in and out of office, containment of terrorist sponsoring states is still the policy to follow. That’s why they so adamantly pushed the inspections regime; they calculate that leaving rogue regimes in power but containing those regimes through inspections can effectively deal with the threat posed by terrorist organization worldwide.
First, let’s be clear: abject failure at containment leads directly to such horrific tragedies as Kobar Towers, and the World Trade Center bombings, and the Bali bombing, and the USS Cole bombing, and the suicide murders on Israeli buses and in Israeli markets and restaurants, and bombings of U.S. Embassies in Africa, and … and you get the picture. Terrorists networks must have a country in which to be trained, and which under gird their finances and documents of identity.
Can failure of Iraqi containment be tied to the horror of 9/11/2001? YES! And to many other terrorist acts around the world.
While the Clinton administration pursued a policy of hit-and-miss containment, the Iraqi secret service sent officers into Afghanistan, to train al Qaeda operatives in the production and use of biological and chemical weapons. All during the Clinton administration’s policy of containment and inspections in Iraq, Saddam maintained a research facility at Salman Pak, developing chemical and biological weapons. Salman Pak was also maintained as a training camp, where operatives from several terrorist organizations received training in hijacking modern airliners with no more armament than sharp knives, received training in the use of weapons of mass destruction against civilian targets, received training in forgery and robbery as a means to maintain their presence in foreign countries, and received training in assassination methods.
Containment, at least as practiced by the previous administration, didn’t work. It was a feckless diversion from the truth that this nation can no longer afford to ignore: containment without force does not work to safeguard the civilian populations of nations that terrorists choose to target. And yet, there are vocal politicians in America still trying to push this approach by various means. They will not shut up until this feckless strategy is exposed and debated into rejection.
What of pre-emptive deterrence coupled with regime change? Well, when directed at the states sponsoring terrorists in order to employ them as weapons against other nations, it is the only thing that does work … as we have begun to prove with the Taliban’s sponsorship for al Qaeda, and we are about to discover regarding Iraq.