04 March 2003
War with Iraq Is All But Sure, Dennis Ross Says
(Ex-Mideast negotiator retains hope for Israeli-Palestinian peace) (2020) By Ralph Dannheisser Washington File Special Correspondent Washington -- War with Iraq is now all but certain, Dennis Ross says. Ross, the top Middle East negotiator in the administrations of former Presidents George Bush and Bill Clinton, said he sees no more than a five percent chance that Saddam Hussein will disarm as required by United Nations resolutions, and so stave off an attack by a U.S.-led coalition. Indeed, the Iraqi leader has a history of miscalculating the effects of his actions and, much more likely, is on the verge of making "one miscalculation too many," Ross said in a speech at Georgetown University in Washington March 3. Ross, just back from a visit to the Middle East, was somewhat more upbeat about prospects for a start on the road to achieving peace between Israel and the Palestinians. He reported that both sides say the present situation simply cannot be permitted to continue. The first step forward, he suggested, must be for the Palestinians to sideline Yasser Arafat as irrelevant to the process, designate a prime minister who can be the new focus for negotiations, and renounce violence -- which he said has clearly not worked -- as a means of achieving their ends. Ross, now director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, addressed the twin issues in presenting the 2003 Marver H. Bernstein lecture in an annual series sponsored by the university. On the crisis involving Iraq, Ross cited four factors that he said would feed into a near-certain decision by President Bush to go to war, barring a sudden, complete -- and highly unlikely -- reversal by Hussein. Taken together, they are "almost certain to guarantee that we are not going to back off," he said. Those factors that "make war inevitable," he said, are the President's personal view that he has acted slowly and deliberately, the "new reality" created by the presence of 200,000 U.S. troops brought in with a view toward war, the uncertainties in the U.S. economy created by the continuing crisis, and political factors in the Bush presidency. First, Ross theorized, Bush feels that, over a period of several months, "he has given Saddam Hussein every chance (and) has given the United Nations every chance to play a role." Thus, Bush is "going to go ahead, because he feels he hasn't rushed it.... his sense (is) that he's already played out the string as it relates to the U.N.," Ross said. The troop presence "is creating the kind of pressure on Saddam Hussein that gives him the incentive to give in little by little," Ross said, but added, "It's not so simple for us to maintain the presence of 200,000 troops out there for an extended period of time. I rather doubt that this administration is prepared to keep the 200,000 troops there for another six months or so without going to war." As for the U.S. economy, he said, "everything is on hold pending a resolution of the Iraq crisis" and so "the psychology which affects the well-being of our economy is also on hold. As a result, "the pressure to do something as it relates to improving the economy is going to be an argument for going to war, it's not going to be an argument for pulling back." Finally, Ross said, Bush strikes the American public as "presidential" largely because "he says what he means and he does what he says." If, after all the preparations, he should now pull back without disarming Hussein, "from a political standpoint I think that is going to be very difficult for this president," he said. Ross said the slight chance for avoiding war depends totally on Hussein -- on the prospect that "either he really will disarm at the very last moment, or at the very last moment he will abdicate. He is, after all, homicidal, not suicidal." But this is most unlikely for a man who has proven himself "the master of miscalculation," Ross said. Hussein's miscalculations include an invasion of Iran that "he thought was going to be a cakewalk," his invasion of Kuwait, and then his refusal not to pull out of Kuwait when given 45 days to do so under threat of U.N.-authorized use of force against his regime, according to Ross. "If you look at the history of his calculations, they don't exactly inspire a lot of confidence that he's going to calculate correctly this time... He isn't reading this president right," Ross said. The problem is compounded because nobody, even in his inner circle, dares tell him the truth. "For Saddam Hussein, shoot the messenger is not a saying" but a reality, he added. After presenting war as a forgone conclusion, Ross went on to outline what he sees as the priorities after an inevitable victory. First, he said, will come stabilization. "We assume a responsibility for providing services, for preserving law and order, and it won't be a simple task," Ross said. "There will be an impulse toward bloodletting, there will be an impulse toward score settling" among the divergent groups in Iraq. Ross dismissed two possible approaches, working through the Iraqi military and setting up a U.S. occupation. "Do we want a new Sunni general in charge?" he asked. Or "Do we want to have (General) Tommy Franks (head of the U.S. Central Command) become the new governor of Iraq? I'm able to restrain my enthusiasm for that particular option," he said. Rather, a U.S. peacekeeping force must be replaced by an international force as swiftly as possible, Ross said. "We do not want this to look like an occupation...There will be rejoicing when he (Hussein) is gone....but if it looks like we are the new occupiers, then the rejoicing...won't last for a long time," he added. Ross said there also should be "an Iraqi dimension" involving creation of "either an executive council or a consultative council that includes representatives of all the groups in Iraq," under rotating leadership. The diplomat warned against illusions over the process. "There is no such thing as instant democracy and there will not be instant democracy within Iraq. This is going to take time, it's going to take a serious (outside) investment" though Iraq will, over time, be able to finance much of its own reconstruction. "This is an exercise that's going to take a few years," he said. A second postwar priority is pursuing "the hearts and minds part of the war on terrorism," he said. If the United States does not handle that task successfully, he said, "the pool of people who are alienated, who are angry, who feel despair, who are attracted to extremist ideologies is not going to shrink," Ross said. This means that "we, in the aftermath of this war, also have to be serious about the issue of reform and democratization" -- not only in Iraq but in friendly Middle Eastern countries, Ross stressed. "We're seen in the Middle East as having a double standard...they see us using democracy as a club or a weapon against those we don't like but never with those that we do like. We're going to have to adopt a consistent posture on our values in the aftermath of this war.... Apply them across the board, with everybody," he said. "There has to be a rule of law, there has to be the promotion of tolerance and minority rights....There has to be promotion of women's rights," Ross said. And he called for continuing efforts against terrorist groups like Hezbollah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Ross praised recent actions by Syrian President Bashar Assad who, he said, has not only started to restrain Hezbollah, but has acted to withdraw some 4,000 troops from Lebanon. Assad should be encouraged to shut down Hamas and Islamic Jihad and end military support for Hezbollah, Ross said. "If he plays by the rules in stopping terror, that's an issue that we should be prepared to address" by such steps as resuming negotiations pointed at Syria's recovery of the Golan Heights, he said. A new postwar climate could also set the stage for a renewal of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, Ross suggested. The current situation is one in which "both sides question whether they have a partner. They've lost faith," Ross said. "First, we have to reestablish the concept of believability in peacemaking, which has been lost," he declared. Based on his recent visit, he said he viewed this as not hopeless. "Both sides use the same language; both sides say it's got to end. Both sides say it can't go on this way. Both sides are paying a very high price," Ross observed -- particularly the Palestinians, of whom he said 70 percent are living under the poverty line. Ross said talks with Palestinians convinced him that, "Among those who are not Hamas or Islamic Jihad there is a consensus" on two basic elements. "One is that Arafat's time is past.... Arafat offers nothing, this is across the board on the Palestinian side, and two is that the violence has produced nothing but disaster and it's got to stop," Ross said. Appointment of a prime minister, seemingly in the works, "is important, even if initially Arafat is not just going to disappear from the scene.... You demonstrate the principle that executive power is going to reside not in Arafat's hands but in the prime minister's hands," he said. And, given a Palestinian legislative council that already is "increasingly dominated by those who believe in transparency, accountability and reform," it is vital that the prime minister be answerable to that body and not to Arafat, Ross said. "The Palestinian reform movement is completely authentic, and it represents the bridge to the future," he said. "The key here is to build the base for a Palestinian leadership that is committed to reform, that understands that you have to give up violence and if that's the case then you're going to create a different reality for the Israelis....Terror and violence don't work and they have to delegitimize that." "If peace is to have any possibility of being achieved, the most important development is going to be that the Palestinians make it clear that they have a political framework (that) spells out what they stand for, it spells out what they're against, it says very clearly that there's a legitimate way to pursue their cause and there's an illegitimate way to pursue their cause, and those who pursue it illegitimately are enemies of the cause," he said. Ross called on the Arab states to embrace the same philosophy, so as to give the Palestinians a needed "umbrella of legitimacy as they confront others who reject peaceful coexistence." Commenting on the "roadmap" for the peace process presented by the Middle East quartet -- the United States, the United Nations, the European Union and Russia, Ross termed it asymmetrical in its goals. There must be a realization that if the goal is a two-state solution, with an end to Israeli occupation and creation of "a Palestinian state that is sovereign, democratic, independent and viable," then simply offsetting that with Israel's right to exist is insufficient, he argued. The parties "ought to talk about recognition of Israel as a Jewish state, because that's what at stake here, two states," he said. Each side has clear responsibilities, Ross said. "The Palestinians and the Arabs have to give up violence, the Israelis have to give up control.... If the Israelis want security, then they also have to be prepared to recognize and respect Palestinian aspirations," he said. He said Israel would have to take steps such as moving to bring down "illegal outposts" and "freeze settlement activity." The United States, for its part, "should be cultivating a dialogue between the two sides," Ross said. (The Washington File is a product of the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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