Take note, the U.S. has not gone ahead on it’s own in removing Saddam’s regime but is asking the rest or the world to step up and talk Saddam into allowing unrestricted inspections. If the U.N. fails then the U.S. will inspect the sites themselves, which in order to do so safely a regime change will likely have to take place.
A CHALLENGE TO THE U.N.
“Iraq has answered a decade of U.N. demands with a decade of defiance,” Bush said. “All the world now faces a test … and the United Nations, a difficult and defining moment. Are Security Council resolutions to be honored and enforced … or cast aside without consequence? Will the United Nations serve the purpose of its founding … or will it be irrelevant?”
Bush was referring to the agreement that ended the Gulf war and several U.N. Security Council resolutions, under which Iraq is forbidden from developing weapons of mass destruction and under orders to allow any existing such weapons to be destroyed.
Bush did appear to respond to the growing chorus of opposition to unilateral U.S. military action against Iraq, offering to work in concert with other nations on a resolution “to meet our common challenge.”
Glad you posted this UTD. The US is not going back to the UN for no reason. Here’s a very interesting piece from a Times journalist addressing this very issue. Please note, this is very pro - Bush analyst so I don’t think his motives need to be questioned. He’s primarily a financial advisor:
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September 12, 2002
Bush may have been saved from himself
Anatole Kaletsky
September 7 was a day that changed the world. No, that was not a misprint. Moved as we should all be by the anniversary of last year’s terrorist outrage, the geopolitical consequences of September 11 could be equalled or even exceeded by the effects of last Saturday’s agreement at Camp David between Tony Blair and George W. Bush: that America would seek the authority of the United Nations before attacking Iraq.
Cynics will scoff at almost every word in the sentence I have just written. It is surely just Downing Street spin to ascribe to the British Prime Minister any significant influence over America’s strategy in the Middle East. It is even more naive to use the word “agreement” for the policy that emerged from Camp David, since Mr Blair had committed himself in advance to support whatever the President might do or say.
Worst of all is that last weasel phrase I used: “America would seek the authority of the United Nations before attacking Iraq.” Doesn’t this clearly imply that Iraq will be attacked, come what may? Aren’t Mr Bush and Mr Blair using the UN process as a figleaf, to find some spurious legitimacy for a decision to go to war which has already been made? All these objections may well be true. Yet I still insist that America’s decision to go through the UN process — assuming that Mr Bush reaffirms it in his speech to the General Assembly today — will turn out to be an event of historic importance with beneficial implications for America, the Middle East and the world — not least, the global economy and financial markets.
I also insist that Mr Blair’s apparent role in persuading Mr Bush to work within the UN system was a triumph of global statesmanship of which the Prime Minister can be justifiably proud. Even if Mr Blair was only a supporting actor in the battle between hawks and doves, between unilateralists and internationalists in the Bush White House, his influence at Camp David was enough to justify all his pretensions to global leadership, all his mawkish rhetoric and all the kowtowing to America which many British commentators, myself included, have ridiculed in the past 12 months. To put it more bluntly: I owe Mr Blair an apology, as do many of the other cynics in Britain’s chattering classes.
Having got all that off my chest, let me explain why the world really could be changed by America’s decision to work through the UN to deal with President Saddam Hussein.
Let’s start with the narrowest but most dramatic issue. Will there be a war? Conventional wisdom maintains that a war in Iraq is inevitable, since Mr Bush will insist on a UN ultimatum so clear and specific that Saddam could not possibly comply. In my view, the opposite is true.
The clearer the UN demands and deadlines, the greater the probability that Saddam will decide to give up his weapons without a fight. Mr Bush’s decision to go through the UN means that the US is no longer insisting on “regime change” in Iraq as its main objective. Instead, America will now presumably insist on a UN resolution which goes well beyond mere inspections and authorises military action to enforce the 1991 ceasefire agreement between the UN and Iraq. This said that “Iraq shall unconditionally accept the destruction, removal or rendering harmless under international inspection”.
**Such a resolution, provided it contains a clear-cut deadline for military action, could force and permit Saddam to do a deal. Iraq would have to give up all its weapons and open its borders permanently to military inspections. In effect, it would have to accept a long-term occupation by international forces under informal US control.
In exchange, Saddam could hope to continue enjoying the nonmilitary trappings of power, at least for the time being. If he played his cards right (especially in relation to Israel and the oil market), he might even hope to rehabilitate himself in Washington’s eyes and become one of America’s tolerable tyrants, another Mubarak or Musharraf, maybe even a latter-day King Saud. **
My hunch is that some such peaceful compromise is now the most likely outcome of the US-Iraq confrontation. But let us suppose that Saddam refuses to meet a UN ultimatum, either because he believes it to be a bluff, or simply because he is mad. Then, a war in Iraq would be inevitable, but it would be a very different war from the one that seemed probable as recently as a week ago. A war to enforce a UN ultimatum would be totally different from a unilateral US attack on Iraq in two crucial ways.
First, it would be won quickly, with the smallest possible number of casualties and minimal economic costs. Secondly, it would be a war that made the world a safer, more stable place, by reinforcing the concept of international law and the power of the UN system to enforce it. Neither of these desirable characteristics would apply to a freelance operation against Iraq by America, with or without British support.
A UN-backed war would be much more likely to succeed, and to do so quickly, than a unilateral US operation, because it would provide the justification for Iraq’s neighbours to act as staging posts for thousands of GIs.
Of course, the US hawks have always claimed that they need no regional allies because they could defeat Iraq with paratroops and use Marine landings, and this might well be true. But it would be much safer and better for all concerned if this claim was never tested. Moreover, a quick Iraqi surrender would become infinitely more likely if America were known to have the option of launching a full-scale invasion with hundreds of thousands of ground troops from Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Kuwait.
All this now looks conceivable, given America’s sudden willingness to use the UN process — and given the reciprocal understanding in Moscow, Beijing and Paris that America may accept the UN Security Council as a serious institution of world governance, provided it becomes a serious institution instead of a grandstand for diplomatic games.
This brings me to the political, moral and economic benefits of a multilateral approach which seemed to find favour at Camp David after the arrogance and unilateralism of Mr Bush’s first two years in power.
When Mr Bush proclaimed his new doctrine of “pre-emptive” wars against states in the “Axis of Evil” that might one day support “terror”, the world was justifiably horrified. It is often argued that Mr Bush’s offence was to challenge the ban on unprovoked — or “preventive” — aggression against sovereign states, a principle which has been the foundation of international law since the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648. But was this the real worry? The Washington hawks surely had a point when they noted that Europe has not been a model of peaceful coexistence since 1648.
The cause for alarm was not America’s rejection of the principle of national sovereignty. Sovereignty is constantly infringed in the modern world in a myriad different ways. What was really worrying about the axis of evil doctrine was Mr Bush’s claim that he, and he alone, had the right to decide which states were the evil outlaws and to punish them whenever he saw fit.
The axis of evil doctrine threatened to do irreparable damage to something far more important than the peace of Westphalia — the outline of a genuine legal framework to settle issues of war and peace, created after the Second World War around the checks and balances. This system was far from perfect but it has helped to avert global wars for the past 57 years. It is the only basis for a legal system that the world has got — and there has been an unprecedented opportunity to strengthen and improve it since the end of the Cold War.
**Mr Bush branded Saddam as an outlaw — and rightly so. But he seemed also to push America away from the law-abiding community of nations. The axis of evil doctrine scoffed at the concept of international law and arrogated to America the right to be legislator, judge, jury, prosecutor and policeman in every future international confrontation. **
It was Churchill, reputed to be George W. Bush’s favourite non-American politician, who said that “jaw-jaw is always better than war-war”. It was the American founding fathers who said that the purpose of writing a new constitution for the fledgeling United States of America was to create “a government of laws, not men”. Is it possible that Mr Bush has finally got the message?
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Reading between the lines, it’s clear that what this commentator is saying is that although the UN is not necessarily needed, and that the US is more than capable of turning over a severly depleted Iraqi military machine independently, America at least needs to give an impression of adhering to international opinion, if only to ensure a more stable environment for business on foreign shores.
And here’s another article from another Times journalist, Simon Jenkins, who, unlike Kaletsky has always taken a moral stance since Sep 11. Very good reading nonetheless. I guess you guys don’t get to see this type of viewpoint much in the States.
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September 13, 2002
The changed character of a lone star President
simon jenkins
When running for President, George W. Bush was emphatic. As far as the world was concerned, he was opposed to adventurism and intervention. He said he wanted a “humble foreign policy”. He told his opponent, Al Gore, that it was not America’s job to “go around the world saying ‘this is the way it’s got to be’”.
Yesterday at the United Nations he dramatically reversed this position. In a remarkable assertion of global sovereignty, he told the UN to get rid of President Saddam Hussein or he would do the job himself. He reinforced in meticulous terms his swelling crusade against evil. Though he paid due respect to the traditions of the UN, no quarter was given to such tenets of the postwar international settlement as national sovereignty, the sanctity of borders, or multilateral legitimacy and the rule of law. Saddam offered legitimacy enough.
Though Mr Bush presented no “killer evidence” of an imminent threat from Iraq, he defined Saddam as a timebomb waiting to explode. Arms inspectors seemed neither here nor there. Nor did Mr Bush give Saddam any bridge over which to retreat. He leaves the UN offering Saddam no reason for compromise, with nothing to lose.
I do not regard America as the Great Satan. I therefore do not regard Mr Bush’s motives as an evil equal to that which he opposes. He may be alarming. His plan to bring democracy and peace to the Middle East may be unrealistic and the means dangerous. But an America that wishes to engage with the world to make it a freer and happier place cannot be bad. Unlike many, I do not doubt the sincerity of Mr Bush’s motives. The moral thrust of yesterday’s speech was reminiscent of the Indian summer of British Empire. It was presumptuous, but not wrong.
Shortly after Mr Bush took office I wrote that he might prove a surprise. Texans were not ordinary Americans, they were extraordinary. Mr Bush was courteous, well-spoken, punctual, smart, extravert in manner but introvert in family and friendship. He could be a natural spokesmen for Middle America, closer to the provincial directness of Ronald Reagan than the brash urbanity of Bill Clinton. Above all he was not naturally partisan. From the moment he arrived in Washington he sought concord and coalition.
So it has mostly proved. Tony Blair protests that the simpleton George Bush of caricature is “simply not the man I recognise”. A Harvard MBA is hardly a dumb qualification. At present Washington is awash in presidential analysis. He is depicted as an intelligent man, not articulate in public but level-headed and good at man-management. He has gathered an experienced team whose diverse views he marshals with skill. His Administration is not a bunker but a seminar which, according to one insider, “is a lot more interesting and impassioned than the debate outside it”.
Yet this debate has yielded an astonishing shift in ideology. Before September 11, 2001, Mr Bush’s stance towards the “arc of instability” in the Middle East was clear. It was to respect Condoleezza Rice’s (then) doctrine of neglect. It held that Israelis should find their own peace with the Palestinians. The Iraqi leader should be contained with bombing and sanctions. The al-Qaeda threat was recognised but ignored. It was the usual anti-American “noise”. Foreign policy should be “soft”. After September 11, the stance evolved with startling speed. At first Mr Bush promised only to “hunt down and punish those responsible”. Two weeks later he was “at war” against “every terrorist group of global reach”. After Afghanistan and the military debacle of Tora Bora and Operation Anaconda, he did not retrench but sought new fields of intervention. Al-Qaeda was left to regroup in Pakistan, a country unmolested as a “friend” despite copious evidence that it was a terrorist haven.
The war on terror went abstract. Foes were never named. Instead Mr Bush enunciated a wholly new doctrine of defence. At West Point in June, he specifically rejected the “Cold War doctrines of deterrence and containment”. America, if necessary acting alone, would “take the battle to the enemy, disrupt his plans and confront the worst threats before they emerge”. Mr Bush openly claimed the right to pre-emptive aggression against any state that might threaten America, or its neighbours or even its own people. In this, as we saw yesterday, the UN might be a help but was not necessary. Mr Blair apparently agrees.
The casting of Iraq as the number one objective for the new doctrine was swift. I recall last winter that British ministers regarded a land war against Baghdad as so inconceivable that they could happily deny British involvement. At the time the White House still saw Iraq as merely part of an “axis of evil”, including Iran and North Korea.
Iraq is now an overriding obsession. On Wednesday the White House conspicuously failed to convince congressional leaders of the imminence of its threat. “Did I see a clear and present danger to the US? No,” said Congressman Robert Menendez, a view supported by experienced senators, Joseph Biden and Richard Lugar. Mr Blair claims that he will be more convincing with his dossier on September 24.
The White House is said by Ms Rice to be operating “a wartime presidency”. According to Wednesday’s New York Times, Mr Bush now has a daily routine devoted exclusively to Iraq. His first breakfast meeting presents the overnight changes to the “threat assessment”. This can be 25 pages long, with targets, maps and supporting intelligence. This is updated with a CIA “overseas briefing” at 8 o’clock and after that an FBI “internal threat” briefing. Iraq is said to have cleared Mr Bush’s diary of virtually all other business. No detail is denied the President. No adviser dares be exposed as having left something unsaid. Small wonder experts are said to be worried about “the psychological impact of this daily barrage of threats” on the President’s judgment, rarely with any countervailing context. We might wonder the same of Mr Blair. Mr Bush has no personal knowledge of the Middle East and no experience to help him in the crucial task of “assessing the assessment”. He does not seem a natural hawk. He respects the caution of his Secretary of State, Colin Powell, and of the family court of “realists”, such as James Baker, Brent Scowcroft and George Bush Sr. Their input ran through the velvet glove portions of yesterday’s speech, not least in refusing to put a time-limit on UN Security Council action. But the overwhelming sense was of a White House in the grip of a frantic urgency, as if Mr Bush had never before encountered a truly nasty dictator.
In the 1970s there was a school of Pentagon hardliners that advocated a nuclear first strike against the Soviet Union. The regime, they said, was so evil and its military arsenal so unstable that an attack to knock out its nuclear capability was both justified and vital for Western security. It was the only way to avert “mutually assured destruction”. The hawks lost that battle. Pre-emptive attack proved non-essential after all. The doves won, if only by pointing out the appalling consequences should the strike fail.
American power is no longer constrained by such realism. The shock of September 11 has sent it veering from humility to supremacy. The President demands the right to declare foreign states “rogues” or “threats”. He claims the right to tell the UN to remove such governments, or he will do so by force. Those who feel that all power, however benign, should be held in some sort of check must question this licence. Mr Bush himself accepts that action against Iraq is to enforce UN resolutions. Yet he rejects the need for the UN formally to authorise such action. This cannot be lawful.
On Monday night’s television I watched an ally of Donald Rumsfeld look forward to the day when America would soon “establish democracies” across the Middle East. The Pentagon had only to touch the ground with its magic wand. Mr Bush is surely not such a poor student of history as that. He has given the West much cause for admiration over the past year. But even September 11 does not allow him a global licence to topple regimes at will.
A year after that dreadful crime, America still has not caught its perpetrators or brought any of them to justice. We are told that they are still at large. They, not Iraq, are still the greatest and most immediate threat to the world.
This is from Human Rights Watch on the prosecution of Saddam based on the Genocide of the Kurds. The UN is toothless:
Human Rights Watch investigators took advantage of this opening to enter northern Iraq and document Saddam’s crimes. Some 350 witnesses and survivors were interviewed. Mass graves were exhumed. And Kurdish rebels were convinced to hand over some 18 tons of documents that they had seized during the brief post-war uprising from Iraqi police stations. These documents were airlifted to Washington, where Human Rights Watch researchers poured through this treasure trove of information about the inner workings of a ruthless regime.
With this extraordinarily detailed evidence of genocide, Human Rights Watch launched a campaign to bring Saddam to justice. At the time the U.N. Security Council was creating special tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, but there was no consensus for similar action on Iraq. France and Russia, each with extensive business interests in Iraq, threatened to wield their veto. China, worried about analogies to its treatment of Tibetans, was disinclined to support an International Criminal Tribunal for Iraq. With no International Criminal Court then in the works, and the Pinochet option of exercising universal jurisdiction in national courts not yet widely recognized, the prospect of criminal prosecution was remote.
Human Rights Watch thus turned to the only available remedy – a civil suit before the International Court of Justice in The Hague, commonly known as the World Court. The relevant U.N. treaty – the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide – assigned the World Court the task of adjudicating disputes under the treaty. We hoped for a declaratory judgment that the Iraqi government had committed genocide, damages for the survivors, and an order that the perpetrators be prosecuted.
The problem was that only governments can bring suit before the World Court. Washington was a logical first choice, and ultimately the Clinton administration endorsed the case. But restrictions in the U.S. ratification of the Genocide Convention stood in the way of a successful suit.
Human Rights Watch staff then circled the globe trying to convince another government to bring the suit. None would. At best, a couple of governments said they would join a coalition to bring the case, but only on the condition that at least one European government joined as well. Several European governments gave the matter serious consideration, but in the end none would take the plunge.
There were many reasons for this reluctance, some stated openly, others only hinted at. Governments feared the loss of business opportunities when Iraq emerged from U.N. sanctions. They feared a loss of influence in the Middle East for suing an Arab state. They feared terrorist retaliation by Iraqi agents. And they feared the expense of bringing the lawsuit (although offers were made to raise the funds).
This frustrating experience highlighted the importance of an International Criminal Court – that is, a global tribunal that does not depend on the political courage of individual governments or the vagaries of consensus among the veto-wielding members of the U.N. Security Council. But the ICC will apply only to crimes that are committed after the treaty takes effect in several weeks. Many governments are ratifying the ICC treaty as an insurance policy against future Saddams. But the court cannot act retroactively on a crime such as the Anfal genocide.
Security Council
The best option remains Security Council action to establish an International Criminal Tribunal for Iraq, since the council would be free to grant the tribunal jurisdiction over past crimes. But council action depends on overcoming the veto of Russia, France and China. To date, that obstacle has been insurmountable, although no effort has been made in the post-Sept. 11 climate.
I don't think the UN is toothless at all. At least I hope not. Many Pakistani soldiers died in Somalia trying to enforce UN resloutions, thousands are still deployed in other parts of Africa. If it's a waste of time then I would like to see them brought home.
UN has to cater to 189 countries, not just America. If it's just going to be a rubber stamp for the big 5 then yeah, by all means let's get rid of it. We have areas where our troops can be better deployed.
I just get sick of the inhabitants of this board crowing about the US motivation in Iraq being oil, when certain chickens**t countries allow a certifed genocidal totalitarian dictator to stay in power because the lack the testicular material to get rid of him. Specifically France and Germany built the Nuclear facilities for Saddam with a wink and a nod knowing what he was going to do with them. Now they threaten vetos so they can continue trade in the future? Weenies. It would be refreshing to see them do the right thing.
No, the UN is not completely innept. Corrupt, possibly. A bloated infrastructure, yes. And devoid of meaningful leaders, yup. Many of the humanitarian efforts are very substantial, but in terms of settling significant world conflicts, pathetic.
No, the UN is not completely innept. Corrupt, possibly. A bloated infrastructure, yes. And devoid of meaningful leaders, yup. Many of the humanitarian efforts are very substantial, but in terms of settling significant world conflicts, pathetic.
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well, you know what, we know enough about significant world conflicts in our parts. I think if we could see some settling of THOSE issues then we could move forward with the UN.
UN has been toothless about dealing with many other issues, not just Iraq. I am in full support of ALL Un resoltions being implemented immediately.
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The Problem with that is that in order to obtain approval and avoid being vetoed, most mandatory UN Resolutions have been worded in such a way that they are subject to about 20 different interpretations. It is the rare UN Resolution that passes with little or no differences of opinion marring the language of the final version. Such was the case with Iraq and the inspectors and sanctions. Everyone wanted them and the resolutions are clear and concise.
Many would argue that Israel is in violation of Resolution 242 while many others argue not because the language is susceptible of different interpretations. The members of the UN didn't agree on a single interpretation at the time the Resolution passed so how can they agree on a single interpretation today that would justify "enforcing" it? The bottom line is that the UN often believes it is important to say something that everyone can agree to just so that the UN doesn't appear as a silent or moot entity. The fact that no one agrees as to the meaning of what they say is not deemed particularly important.
here’s another voice from one of the more respected broadsheets, again a journalist who was totally behind the US attack on Afghanistan. Interesting to read the perspective a year later.
The last emperor
One thing was made crystal clear yesterday: there is no other authority than America, no law but US law
Polly Toynbee
Friday September 13, 2002
The Guardian
There he stood, this unlikely emperor of the world, telling the UN’s 190 nations how it is going to be. The assembled nations may not be quite the toothless Roman senate of imperial times, but at the UN the hyperpower and its commander-in-chief are in control as never before: how could it be otherwise when the US army is the UN’s only enforcer? This is, President Bush said, “a difficult and defining moment” for the UN, a challenge that will show whether it has become “irrelevant”. He pointed his silver-tongued gun with some delicacy and a certain noblesse oblige, but there was no doubt he was holding it to the UN’s head: pass a resolution or be bypassed.
It was a fine and gracious speech that might have been borrowed from better presidents in better times. He spoke of a just and lasting peace for Palestine. He promised a surprise return by the US to Unesco. He spoke of the tragedy of world poverty, disease and suffering, of offering US aid, trade and healthcare. Earnest and uplifting, it was very like the speech he made soon after the twin towers attack last year. But how long ago that suddenly seemed. Back then the world tried hard to believe him, full of sympathy and hope that this earth-quake had indeed turned him internationalist. But this time belief was stretched beyond breaking. The skills of the best speech writer could not blot out the gulf between last year’s rhetoric and the reality that followed.
Maybe it was the cut-away to Hamid Karzai in his green striped coat of many colours sitting in the chamber. It came as a sharp reminder of America’s failure to invest in serious nation-building in Afghanistan, failure to send in enough troops to stop the old warlords seizing power again, the paucity of aid and the brazen carelessness once war was won. So Bush’s conjured images of a postwar Iraq, peaceful and democratic, sounded like empty phantasms. War in Afghanistan to oust the Taliban was necessary - but so was investing in long-lasting security and prosperity if he wanted to prove how democracy wins over fundamentalist fury. From Kyoto and Johannesburg, to the ICC, steel tariffs, NMD and nuclear testing, too much has happened (or not happened) since last year’s speech to take this one at face value.
Even so, good words are still preferable to bad ones. It was, after all, remarkable that the president was there in that chamber at all. A month ago the strident voices coming out of the White House would have none of it. The Rumsfeld/Cheney axis of war was in the ascendant, the UN was for wimps. The hawks would never have let their emperor stand there soliciting UN support in dulcet tones. It would be nice to believe that Tony Blair played some part in strengthening the arm of the Colin Powell internationalists who won the argument on the need for UN legitimacy. Sadly, he features hardly at all in US commentators’ accounts of the internal Republican rows that finally brought Bush to the UN. For a very little influence, Blair has paid a frighteningly high price: the split with the rest of Europe, weakening his own influence by becoming Bush’s tool, never again an independent honest broker. At home there is angry puzzlement among many more in his own party than the usual suspects. Was it worth so much damage? Only if in the end this war is successfully averted.
Even now, the drafters are working at a UN resolution to square (or fudge) the needs of the US war party with French and Russian hesitation. Deals are brokered, poor countries’ arms are twisted with aid and trade while Russia may be allowed to kill a few more Chechens. But a deal there must be. The only ones who hope the UN fumbles are the Rumsfeld/Cheney warriors who want no straitjacket, no option for Saddam to avoid the war now sharpening its knives on his borders. Moving command headquarters from Florida to Qatar could hardly send a louder message: America wants war, America means war.
The only hope of avoiding it is that Saddam takes fright at a security council resolution with a firm time limit for the weapons inspectors to return - any time, any place or else, no run-around or obstruction. The message that the US means war has been conveyed to him forcefully by everyone who has his ear, including former weapons inspector Scott Ritter. The US sabre is out of its scabbard: just let him look Cheney and Rumsfeld in the eye. The world will hold its breath and hope he blinks or, better still, that he is overthrown by others who see what’s coming.
For those who supported the wars in Afghanistan, Kosovo and Sierra Leone, the enslaved peoples of Iraq are no less just a cause. Once legitimised by the UN and international law, there is no moral difference in the need to liberate Iraqis and relieve the potential threat Saddam poses to his neighbours. None would mourn his passing from power. The difference is pragmatic, not moral. There were very good reasons why Bush senior did not march on Baghdad in 1991, reasons that remain unchanged. Saddam’s elite troops around Baghdad would inflict very heavy casualties. In his death throes, he would certainly use anthrax and nerve gases. Iraq might fall apart, with Shi’ite lands defecting to Iran, strengthening another vile regime, destabilising others. If Afghanistan cannot hold US attention for one short year, how would far more complex Iraq be nurtured long term? Fermenting terror, recruiting generations of terrorists to come, the cure looks worse than the disease.
Curiously, the louder Bush and Blair call for an end to this villain, the less convincing it sounds. Why now? That remains the perplexing question. Containment works well: few observers think Saddam can launch anything under present no-fly, daily bombing pressure. What is Bush’s obsession? It remains a mystery. It is not a vote-winner in the US where the danger looks not clear and present, but cloudy and distant. The risks are frightening and the costs staggering. Petrol prices rise while stock exchanges fall at the prospect. Oil say some, but if US companies want Saddam’s oil, an oil-driven cynical administration could make peace not war and help themselves to fat contracts.
No, it appears to spring from a new ideology, a neo-conservative dream which Charles Krauthammer, guru of the right, calls the US’s “uniquely benign imperium”. Hyperpower is not enough unless it is exerted so forcefully that no state ever again challenges benign US authority. One thing was made crystal clear yesterday - there is no other source of authority but America, and that means there is no other law but US law. What the US wants, the UN had better solemnise with a suitable resolution - very like the Roman senate and one of its lesser god-emperors. But this is not the real America. A small cultish sect is battling for the “imperium” within this bizarre administration, resisted by mainstream Republicans - so what is Tony Blair doing in there with them?
This is part of that UN Resolution calling on Iraq to disarm its WMD, the one everyone mentions when they argue Iraq is disobeying international laws. Paragraph 14.
Effectively, therefore, Iraq’s process of disarming its WMD must be undertaken in the context of regional, i.e., Middle Eastern, disarmament.