Nothing illustrates the dramatic change in world opinion more than the fact that appeals “to work or cooperate with UN” are now addressed to both Washington and Baghdad in equal measure. The latest warning to the US of the horrendous consequences of any unilateral action against Iraq has come from Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal.
In an interview with the BBC, the prince, a man not given to hyperbole, said any military action without UN backing would be a “war of aggression.” There is a great deal of difference, he pointed out, between that and a military operation enforcing a UN mandate.
He was echoing a sentiment dramatically expressed in last Saturday’s massive anti-war protests in more than 600 cities. But there was something more to his warning.
To protesters in London or Madrid, a return of Desert Storm, for all its fury, would still only be a horror show confined to the TV screens in their living rooms. But we in the Gulf region will have to live with its aftermath for years to come. You don’t resolve a problem by creating a far bigger crisis, the prince said.
The crisis he was referring to was a Yugoslavia-like unraveling of Iraq with all its internecine warfare and bloodletting. Even US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who always talks about a sanitized war and speedy victory, has now drawn up a nightmarish scenario of all the things that can go wrong. He no longer discounts the possibility of higher civilian casualties, massive flow of refugees and anarchy, once Saddam has been deposed.
The prince also questioned the advisability of a regime change courtesy of a victorious army in a battlefield. A regime change, the prince said, has to be indigenous if it is to have any legitimacy or durability.
That the prince, who began by addressing the question of weapons of mass destruction, should discuss a regime change exposes a fundamental flaw in Washington’s case against Iraq. If it is the weapons of mass destruction the US is after, they need to be destroyed even in an Iraq with a benevolent ruler with State Department-certified democratic and human rights credentials. Or if Saddam Hussein is the problem, bringing in the WMD only clouds the issue and gives Saddam more room for maneuver and a better chance of survival.
It is this shifting stand (one day WMD, Saddam’s regime or Al-Qaeda links the next) that has weakened the US case against Iraq. Add to this Washington’s cavalier attitude to the UN. The UN is OK as long as they support our unilateralism, seems to be the attitude. “A second resolution (for a US-led attack on Iraq) would be useful,” President Bush said yesterday, adding: “It’s not necessary, as far as I’m concerned.” If only things were as simple as that.
Unfortunately, nation after nation is demanding that the UN weapons inspectors be given more time and facilities to disarm Iraq peacefully.
So this unwillingness to listen even to their friends is America’s real problem, not the alliance of “cheese-eating surrender monkeys” led by France. To persist in a course of action in the face of overwhelming world opinion is not the mark of a statesman.
Bush has still time to change course before he finds himself with his bete noire in a “coalition of the unwilling”.
