Is the US going to lead an attack on Iraq or not? That is the question being asked around the world with increasing nervousness — and no one really knows the answer, not even the White House or the Pentagon; President Bush has clearly not yet made up his mind. Russian military officials may confidently state (as they did yesterday) that war will start in mid-February but since they also say that the Americans are not really interested in toppling Saddam Hussein and that the objective is to grab Iraq’s oil, there in no point relying on them: their intelligence is painfully poor.
This crisis is about far much more than Iraqi oil, which in any event the US does not need to control; there is going to be so much more coming onto the market in the next few years — from the Caspian, from Alaska, from northern Siberia, and not to mention other new energy sources — that, as former Russian Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov predicted in Jeddah earlier this week, the price is going to fall.
This crisis is about something completely different and of far greater consequence. It is about who wields power and influence in the Middle East. It is about the shape and destinies of states in the region, and it is about Americans’ need to wipe out the stain and pain of Sept. 11 and prove to themselves and everyone else that they still are No. 1 in the world and that anyone who messes about with them is heading for big trouble. The US feels it needs, in blunt terms, to ‘kick ass’ to be great again. Saddam Hussein is in Washington’s sights because he is an easy target, unlike Al-Qaeda. Iraq is there: it can be bombed. As an abstraction, Al-Qaeda cannot. It is to be hoped that today’s meeting in Ankara of Iraq’s neighbors — Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria, Egypt, Iran and Turkey — can produce something concrete to avoid war. However, the fact that a change of Iraqi government or Saddam Hussein going into exile is not to be discussed on the grounds that these are matters for the Iraqi people to decide (can they?) must limit their options on alternatives to war. Not that he is ever going to quit voluntarily: the only way he will leave is in a coffin. It is also strange that Kuwait was not asked. This too must weaken the prospects for any regional proposals since the US is listening very strongly to what Kuwait has to say — and Kuwait, for obvious reasons, is the one Arab state that most wants Saddam Hussein toppled.
One idea, however, that today’s meeting ought to consider is that arms inspectors not only be allowed to get on with their job but that they should again be stationed permanently in Iraq. Saddam Hussein may well manage to conceal a bomb or two up his metaphorical sleeve, but if inspectors were constantly at work in Iraq he would never be able to move or deploy them.
This may not be the solution the US wants, but it is a practical and workable alternative to war as the means of controlling Saddam Hussein. There is not a government in the world that does not agree that he is a tyrant who if left uncontrolled would try again to impose himself on his neighbors by brute force. There is an absolute and permanent need to contain him. Constant supervision would achieve that. His physical removal as a result of invasion could do so as well, but the risks from that to the stability of the region are just too great.
