With American hawks breathing down his neck and President Bush making waves at the United Nations trying to sway support for U.S. plans for invasion, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein played the inspection card this week, buying his regime a longer life at the expense of allowing United Nations weapon inspectors to return to his pariah state.
Iraq is required, by resolution imposed after the 1991 Gulf War, to end all research into weapons of mass destruction and to allow United Nations-led inspections to ensure that such cessation is actually occurring. However, in 1998, with the fracturing of the Gulf War coalition and international affairs being eclipsed by the continuing impeachment crisis in the United States, Hussein expelled the United Nations delegation, resulting in the nearly four-year stand off that may just now be ending.
Even if inspectors return to Iraq, that may not end the impasse. Previously, there was great deal of obfuscation on the part of Hussein’s regime with regards to what qualified as providing inspectors with “full access” to governmental facilities. Iraq claims to have no weapons of mass destruction, though White House officials vehemently disagree. Should the forthcoming inspections encounter similar roadblocks, it will bolster the Bush Administration’s position regarding Iraq, and possibly sway world opinion.
That would be a bad thing for Iraq, and Hussein in particular, who would find themselves faced with another war. It would be a bad thing for the United States, which would find itself in the position of aggressor and faced with the prospect of a violent war in Iraq’s inhospitable terrain. Hussein must know this, but does he truly understand the level of danger his despotic rule is in?
Saddam Hussein is a petty dictator whose main interest is holding to what little power controlling his minor nation affords him. While he has shown to be a danger to his neighbors, having invaded Kuwait in 1990 and fought a war with Iran through much of the 1980s, he has also shown himself to be a fairly incompetent military strategist. His history of blustering towards the West but then backing down when faced with a united front would indicate that he’s more interested in preserving himself than striking back at America, the “Great Satan” that put him into power.
To assume that Iraqi possession of weapons of mass destruction would be a direct threat to the United States is borderline absurd – to strike America unprovoked with such weapons would ensure Hussein’s own personal destruction, which is the only thing he truly cares about avoiding. So the mere possibility that Hussein may have such weapons is not justification for an aggressive (“pre-emptive” in Bush-speak) war, for they would not truly be a direct threat to American lives or interests. However, the presence of Iraqi nukes or biological weapons could further destabilize the Middle East region, which could in turn endanger Americans.
This is why the inspectors are important, and why America should support the United Nations’ inspector program wholeheartedly – for effective inspections are far more likely to achieve what should be our true aim, the disarmament of Iraq with no loss of American lives, than a war which pursues the amorphous and difficult goal of affecting a “regime change.”
Should Saddam obfuscate again, or be shown to be hiding truly destructive weapons, the United States must stand ready to punish the regime, and if necessary depose it. But it is worth giving inspections a chance. A Saddam who feels secure, and who is being closely watched, is one who poses little threat to the United States or the world. But a Saddam whose back is against a wall and is facing certain expulsion or death anyway would have no reason not to employ whatever weapons he has at his disposal.
Better to send in inspectors to make sure Hussein doesn’t have such weapons than to invade Iraq and find out the hard way that he actually does.
