Time for Unilateral Action Against Saddam’s Iraq

“Beyond the Arab-Israel Conflict: Threats to American Interests in the Middle East,” JINSA’s fourth collaborative strategy conference with the Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College will take place Monday 12 March in Washington, D.C. Our premise is that excessive American focus on Israelis and Palestinians left broader and more threatening situations to fester – Iran and Iraq with their weapons programs, and China and Russia as proliferators.

“Beyond the Arab-Israel Conflict: Threats to American Interests in the Middle East,” JINSA’s fourth collaborative strategy conference with the Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College will take place Monday 12 March in Washington, D.C. Our premise is that excessive American focus on Israelis and Palestinians left broader and more threatening situations to fester – Iran and Iraq with their weapons programs, and China and Russia as proliferators.

The new Administration got off to an excellent start in this regard. They banned the phrase “peace process,” abolished the Middle East Special Envoy, and declined Arafat’s request to reinsert the CIA into security efforts. They focused on Iraq, funded the opposition, bombed anti-aircraft sites that threatened enforcement of the “no fly” zone, and announced that sanctions needed to be reinvigorated to restore UN-mandated weapons inspections. “Let the inspectors in, and we can get beyond this,” Mr. Powell said before his trip. But then…

In the region, Secretary Powell found only tepid Arab support for American policies. He also apparently told Israel that Arafat needed to be “strengthened” so he could stop the Palestinian war against Israel (more about this later). Vice President Cheney noted that the Gulf States used to be, “interested in U.S. relations … the military situation in the Gulf … economic and military cooperation with the U.S. …” Now, he said, they talk about Israel. “The breakdown … in the peace process has slopped over now and clearly has had an impact … and created additional political problems,” he said.

Don’t blame Israel. Maybe what has “slopped over” is Arab frustration with the United States. Maybe the Arabs are talking about Israel because they can’t stand to talk about the mess America made in the Gulf.

The U.S. was the long-term loser in the Gulf War. We ejected Iraqi troops from Kuwait, but did not remove the source of the threat. We did not stop development of weapons of mass destruction or ballistic missiles inside Iraq and did not provide safety for the Kurds in the north or the Shiites in the south. Saddam rules, pumps oil, threatens Israel, Kuwait and others, signed a “free trade” pact with Syria (surely the only free thing in either country), and has key U.S. allies Jordan and Turkey begging us to lift sanctions because they need the economic boost.

The Administration surely cannot rebuild the coalition on Israel’s back – a firm negative reply to Arab States who want to see the U.S. slap Israel for Arafat’s war is essential. But the truth is that we may not be able to rebuild it at all. Ten years of waiting for the world’s only superpower to finish off a rat in the desert may be nine years too many. It may be that unilateral action to remove the weapons sites and the government in Iraq is our best hope of restoring Arab confidence in American leadership.