Kissinger : Deposing Saddam Could Backfire
The Times of India
Monday, 12 August, 2002
Toppling Iraqi President Saddam Hussein militarily could alienate US allies and set a precedent that would not be in US interests, according to a Monday opinion article by former secretary of state Henry Kissinger.
"America's special responsibility, as the most powerful nation in the world, is to work toward an international system that rests on more than military power -- indeed, that strives to translate power into cooperation," Kissinger wrote in an opinion column published by The Washington Post.
Kissinger, who served as national security adviser to former president Richard Nixon starting in 1969, and then as secretary of state from 1973 to 1977, published his column as President George W. Bush and members of his administration push for a military invasion of Iraq to depose President Saddam Hussein.
The Bush administration says Iraq is developing an arsenal of banned chemical, biological and nuclear weapons while refusing to allow United Nations arms inspectors.
"American military intervention in Iraq would be supported only grudgingly, if at all, by most European allies," he said.
From there, the Middle East would be split between those glad to be rid of Saddam and those afraid of reprisals from radical Islamists, Kissinger said.
Russia, too, would fear the radicals while at the same time it mourned its economic loss in Iraq, according to Kissinger.
And China, always fearful of foreign intervention, could reassess its recent moves to join the international economy.
"The most interesting and potentially fateful reaction might well be that of India, which would be tempted to apply the new principle of preemption to Pakistan," Kissinger wrote.
"It is not in the American national interest to establish preemption as a universal principle available to every nation," he added.
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