THE ORLANDO SENTINEL December 10, 2001
IRAQ POSES CLEAR, GROWING PERIL -- BUT WHAT SHOULD BE DONE?
By John Pike
Important questions are important precisely because they do not have easy, obvious answers. Iraq is one of the most important questions facing America today. Flush with the apparent success of U.S. arms in Afghanistan, some are now pressing for a "Phase 2" in the war on terrorism, aimed at Iraq.
Saddam Hussein's regime is without redeeming qualities, oppressing its own people while threatening its neighbors. Iraq has for decades sought weapons of mass destruction, inspiring and reinforcing a regional arms race. Twice in the past two decades, the Iraqi regime has waged aggressive war. In the past decade, the United States has erected a network of new bases in the region to defend against Iraqi aggression, bases which are a source of growing irritation within the region. The danger of Iraqi re-armament should not be underestimated. By the end of the Persian Gulf War a decade ago, Iraq had made substantial strides toward a diverse arsenal of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, and missile-delivery systems. Dismantling these weapons was part of the agreement that ended the Gulf War, an agreement that was systematically violated in the years that followed. By 1998, it was clear that Iraq would not comply with international inspections. The inspectors were ejected, and for the past three years Iraq has quietly rebuilt some unknown fraction of its pre-war arsenal.
Iran has traveled some unknown distance down the road of acquiring nuclear weapons, due in no small measure to the searing experience of the decade-long war with Iraq in the 1980s. Whatever other security threats are perceived by Iranian leaders, Iraq must remain at the top of the threat list. As signs of Iraqi re-armament become less ambiguous, Iran will be driven to follow suit.
The regional arms race may extend further. During the 1980s, Saudi Arabia acquired theater-range ballistic missiles, and, according to some reports, subsidized the Iraqi development of weapons of mass destruction, which could be used on these Saudi missiles. Prudence may have dictated Saudi subsidies to Pakistan's nuclear-weapons program in the 1990s, preserving the option for a rapid Saudi counterbalance to an explicit Iranian nuclear-weapons capability.
Nuclear weapons remain one of the ultimate guarantors of the existence of the state of Israel, and the emerging nuclear capabilities of other states in the region are a source of continuing concern. Two decades ago, Israel launched airstrikes against suspected Iraqi nuclear-weapons facilities, fearful of the specter of a nuclear-armed Iraq. Israel may face similar hard choices in Iraq, Iran and other countries in coming years.
One does not have to conjure cartoonish nightmares of Iraqi missiles raining down on American cities to conclude that the present regime in Bagdad poses a growing threat to what remains of peace in the Middle East.
It is, however, far easier to pose the question than to identify a satisfactory answer. During the Cold War, the United States faced a somewhat analogous question with the Soviet Union, with contending schools of thought as to the best answer. The containment school argued that time was on the side of the cause of freedom, and that eventually the Soviet threat would collapse from its own internal contradictions. This school prevailed in shaping American policy, as did America in the Cold War.
From the beginning, however, another school of thought advocated a more pro-active approach. The proponents of "roll-back" called for measures ranging from supporting guerrilla resistance to initiating preventive war. Though never absent from U.S. strategy, the proponents of roll-back were always stymied by the formidable size of the Soviet adversary.
Now, faced with Hussein's pint-sized edition of the Soviet Union, long-time proponents of roll-back hope to implement their Cold War stratagems. Many leading lights in and around the Bush administration began the year with calls for "regime change" in countries like Iraq and North Korea, and now hope to use the war in Afghanistan to jump-start their previously established agenda.
For the past decade, America has sought to contain Iraq, much as it contained the Soviet Union in previous decades. This containment policy is begrudging supported by front-line states such as Saudi Arabia and Turkey, and increasingly opposed by France, Russia and much of the Arab world. But even the United Kingdom has signaled opposition to a roll-back approach to Iraq.
The danger posed by Iraq is clear, and growing. But Iraq is not Afghanistan, and America cannot seamlessly transition from waging war against terror to waging war against Iraq.
Copyright 2001 Sentinel Communications Co.
