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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Karen Lawrence who wrote (43476)	9/12/2002 12:49:11 PM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

<<...But the administration seems increasingly ready to act alone against Baghdad if it cannot convince the rest of the world that Iraq poses a clear and present danger to its neighbors and to others. Militarily, the US could certainly do so. But unilateral action could cause a diplomatic earthquake that would topple several pillars holding up the edifice of international stability. By attacking Iraq without UN endorsement, Washington would be arrogating to itself the right to decide what constitutes a threat to world peace, and what to do about it. That would be a significant break from international norms. As UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan underscored Wednesday, only the UN Security Council could provide "the unique legitimacy that one needs to be able to act" against threats to international peace. If the US goes it alone, that "neo-imperial vision," argues Georgetown professor John Ikenberry in the current edition of Foreign Affairs magazine, "could transform today's world order in a way that the end of the cold war ... did not."...>> csmonitor.com

To: Karen Lawrence who wrote (43476)	9/12/2002 1:34:42 PM
From: Hawkmoon	Respond to of 281500

They know that their best chance of restraining Bush is to meet him partway, by threatening to use force on their own terms against Iraq – if Mr. Hussein does not cooperate with UN weapons inspectors – as suggested this week by French President Jacques Chirac. Indeed... And were it not for Bush playing "hardball" with the UN, nothing would change with regard to the lethargic enforcement of the UN sanctions against Saddam, with the US and Britain relegated to continuing its military and economic "containment" for another 12 years (at OUR expense, not the UN's). I can live with a rigorous inspection process that is intrusive and complete. I want Iraq to be crawling with inspectors visiting Saddam's palaces, interviewing everyone they want to. And if that "undermines" Saddam's authority and political power, then so be it. He has too much political power already. There is ALREADY a form of anarchy in the middle east. Saddam has scoffed at meeting his obligations under the original UN security council resolutions. We've caught him in flagrant lies about the state of his WMD research (discovered only by speaking with a defecting Iraqi military leader). He's attempted to assassinate GWB41, threatened to invade Kuwait back in 1994, and generally pushed the political and military envelope whenever he believed it suited his purposes. This has caused the US to tie up and expend tremendous resources in containing him. And the extended presence of those US forces in the region are part of the reason that folks like Bin Laden can win the kind of following that he has. Get it over with, fix it and then turn Iraq over to the UN and international organizations (with US financial support). Hawk