According to US officials, President George Bush has been persuaded to take the UN route: he plans to ask the Security Council to approve a resolution that would threaten action against Iraq if UN arms inspectors are not allowed into the country by a specified date.
It would be encouraging to think that Washington has at last listened to Arab calls not to attack Iraq; and, indeed, it may well be that warnings from moderate Arab leaders, notably Crown Prince Abdullah, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Jordan’s King Abdallah, that an Iraqi strike will dangerously destabilize the Middle East have not wholly fallen on deaf ears in Washington. But the change in policy is more likely to have been brought about by voices closer to home: from its most loyal ally, the UK, which has been pushing for the idea of a deadline, from its other European allies who have all drawn the line at any attack without a fresh UN mandate and, most important of all, from Congress and senior Republicans who have all voiced concern at unilateral American action.
Bush is not now saying that he will not strike but that he will not do so without UN approval. The removal of Saddam Hussein is America’s central foreign policy objective.
Bush will, of course, get his UN resolution. There is international consensus that arms inspectors must return at all costs. Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri who has spearheaded a charm offensive to isolate the US may think that the Russians and Chinese will use their vetoes but he deludes himself. Even they are sufficiently worried about Iraq’s military potential. The only thing that seriously irked them — apart from concern about a post-Saddam Iraq being in Washington’s sphere of influence — was that the US should act unilaterally. They want this to be played by the book with themselves fully involved in the decision-making process. A new UN resolution meets their demands — plus in Russia’s case, a US promise to allow it unrivaled access to the post-Saddam Iraqi marketplace.
For Arab governments, however, Bush’s change of tactic complicates matters. The reason for opposing a US strike against Iraq is that it would unleash public fury across the region. But such opposition was also justified on the grounds that a unilateral American attack would be illegal. That will not be the case if the UN now does what President Bush wants. Arab public opinion, in bitter anti-American mood because of continued betrayals over Palestine, is not, however, going to be mollified by a UN document that says the US can attack.
Some quick rethinking is needed. It may be that Bush’s change of plan forces Iraq to see sense and allow the inspectors back on the UN’s terms, thus avoiding disaster. Fine. But unless that happens there will be an attack; and almost certainly sanctioned by the UN. Where will we stand then? And where will we stand afterward when the Americans are feted by ordinary Iraqis as liberators? Or provided a new staging post in the Middle East? Difficult questions.
But ultimately, there is only one question that needs to be asked: What is good for the Iraqi people? Their best interests ought to be the primary concern of all, not whether we hate (or love) the US more (or less) than Saddam Hussein.
