Posted on 02/16/2003 11:06:44 PM PST by Pokey78
FOR the past few months Australians have been engaged in the wrong debate about Iraq, writes military analyst ALDO BORGU*.
on should be UN endorsed or not.
This misses the point. The real debate is whether or not military force is the only way to disarm Iraq (with or without the UN) or whether more peaceful means should be pursued such as sanctions and containment.
It's understandable that most people would like to see UN endorsement of any US military action against Iraq. It does give the greater impression (some would say illusion) of international and legal legitimacy.
But UN endorsement doesn't matter half as much as how any war turns out.
If the war goes well it won't matter that the UN didn't approve or only half-heartedly approved the action. If the war goes badly then no amount of international legal legitimacy can make it better or fix it.
And people also should realise that UN endorsement will in no way change the way the war will be fought. In either case it will be a primarily US-conducted and controlled campaign.
So this brings us to the real debate: war or no war. As the likelihood of war becomes more real it's natural that options other than war to disarm Iraq would be raised. Containment is one of those options.
Containment is the policy that the US and UN have pursued against Iraq since the end of the 1991 Gulf War. It would involve a toughening of sanctions against Iraq as well as a strong inspection regime coupled with the occasional military strike (as opposed to invasion) to show we're serious.
But it wouldn't be war. This is essentially what the French and Germans are proposing.
Any alternative to war is worth pursuing and consideration. But if the objective is to disarm Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction (WMD) then containment is unlikely to be the solution. That's because in order to be effective containment has to be enforced vigorously and sustained for the life of Saddam's regime and that of his anointed successors. So it's a factor of time and will.
There seems to be no disagreement that the only reason that Iraq is currently cooperating with UN inspectors is the threat of some 250,000 US and coalition troops on its borders. As soon as the military threat subsides so too will Iraq's co-operation. The US could not sustain that presence at its current levels beyond six months without serious cuts to its remaining global military presence, including in Japan and Korea. Even then it would be hard to sustain. After all one of the major reasons behind Al-Qaeda's support is the continued US military presence in the Persian Gulf.
It would take years to successfully disarm Saddam. The UNSCOM inspectors were operating for seven years before they were thrown out in 1998 and they still didn't finish the job. In fact Iraq continued to develop weapons of mass destruction while the inspections were taking place. Even if Iraq were successfully disarmed intrusive measures would then have to be kept in place to ensure Saddam doesn't rearm. Does anyone seriously think the international community will strongly and continuously support those measures for another ten or twenty years?
So containment would require previously unseen political will on the part of the UN to strictly enforce sanctions and inspections. That's unlikely over the medium to long term. Prior to President Bush's speech to the UN last year, France and Russia were leading the push to remove sanctions against Iraq. It's easy to see why. Iraq has huge debts to both countries (they're largely responsible for arming the Iraqis). Both countries want to collect on that debt as well as seek further commercial opportunities in Iraq, not least through its oil fields. A US-led war that removed Saddam would limit their opportunities. Even the current sanctions aren't enough to stop billions of dollars in illegal smuggling (including weapons) taking place across Iraq's borders with Syria, Jordan, Turkey and Iran.
These countries know that containment and inspections won't work. They admit to as much by having to toughen up those policies by talking about "vigilant" containment, "smart sanctions" and "coercive" inspections. It's an admission that those policies don't work. If they were really serious about disarming Saddam (rather than just opposing the US) they would have suggested their proposal for coercive inspections and tougher sanctions back in September 2002, when the new inspection regime was being put together.
So, even if you accept that military action is the only way to successfully and permanently disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, that still begs the question of why do it now?
The simple answer is 9/11. What really changed that day was the willingness of the US Government and people to deal with any threats to their security and wider interests.
Saddam always has been a threat to global and regional security. The reason the US didn't do anything about removing him in the past is that it didn't think there would be any support for regime change.
It now has the will to do so.
What the world needs to decide is whether or not to take advantage of that change in will.
If we are serious about disarming Iraq of its WMD then in the absence of effective and unconditional cooperation by Iraq, war is unfortunately the only solution that is guaranteed to get the job done. And that means regime change.
People might believe that the choice confronting us is simply between war and peace. Nothing is ever that simple. Because as a noted British military strategist once said, the objective in war is to achieve a better state of peace.
* Aldo Borgu is a military analyst with the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI). From 1996-2001 he was a senior defence adviser to the Howard Government.
Posted on 02/13/2003 5:31 AM PST by DoughtyOne
Or evil.
I'm not sure which is more depressing.
Regards,
L
. . . is what GWB has in mind.
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