Iraq Promise Puts U.S. Back on the Spot
18 September 2002
stratfor.com
Summary
Iraq's recent pledge to readmit United Nations weapons inspectors is posing a serious problem for the United States. Evidence suggests that some international players may even have coordinated with Iraq to stave off a war. The Bush administration may opt to go war unilaterally, but doing so would create major obstacles for U.S. forces.
Analysis
Although the Iraqi government has offered to let United Nations weapons inspectors back in to the country without conditions, the Bush administration is confident that Baghdad ultimately will renege on its promise, thus allowing Washington to go ahead with what it really wants in Iraq: regime change. But Washington's confidence may prove misplaced.
With his regime's survival at stake, and having had plenty of time to hide whatever components of weapons of mass destruction he might have, Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein indeed may allow unconditional access to the inspectors. This is what Arab, European and Chinese officials seem to have been quietly urging him to do in the last few days: "Keep your promise to the United Nations in order to put off a U.S. attack while we work on lifting sanctions."
Washington is confident that Iraq ultimately will not accede to U.S. demands, and even if Hussein keeps his promise, the Bush administration may opt to launch a unilateral war. But that would dramatically worsen U.S. relations with the rest of the world, and it would put American forces in a much more difficult position by forcing them to conduct a war without U.N. or regional support.
Despite the initial reaction in the major media, the Bush administration's recent efforts to bring the Iraq issue to the United Nations may turn out to have been a mistake. In his speech to the U.N. Security Council last week, U.S. President George W. Bush challenged the United Nations to enforce its own resolutions on Iraq, or the United States would go it alone. Washington was confident that Iraq would stall, and if it did allow inspectors, it would be with conditions that the United Nations would deem unacceptable.
The fact that Baghdad offered unconditional inspections so quickly Sept. 17 -- and the haste with which the Security Council members jumped on the offer -- appears to have surprised Washington, as the U.S. response came much later than the reaction from abroad. Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov praised Iraq for averting war, and France, Germany and China welcomed the news as well.
This helped at least temporarily to scatter the coalition that Washington has been trying to firm up. The U.S. military command knows that going alone into Iraq could be a logistical nightmare. Bush said Sept. 17 that Hussein has "delayed, denied, deceived the world," and that the United Nations should not be fooled by Iraq's ploy, while Secretary of State Colin Powell said the United States would continue pushing for a new U.N. resolution on disarmament, Agence France-Presse reported.
In the first days after Bush's U.N. speech Sept. 12, it looked like Washington had gotten its way, with statements coming from world leaders supporting military action if Iraq would not let the inspectors in. Most important, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal indicated to CNN Sept. 15 that his government would allow U.S. forces to use the country's bases for an Iraq strike as long as the United Nations had endorsed it.
But while the Bush administration was focusing on what it wanted to hear -- an agreement to military action on Iraq -- it was not paying attention to the condition being voiced by the Saudis and almost other every ally: They would approve such a war only with U.N. backing. With the enormous pressure it had applied on all the major world players, Washington had believed approval would be a near certainty.
However, Iraq's latest move has put a kink into these plans. Ivanov already has rejected U.S. calls for a new U.N. resolution to establish a timetable for Iraqi compliance, although other council members, such as France, have not yet followed this lead.
Moreover, intense consultations that took place between Iraq and major international players the days before Baghdad's offer suggest that some officials were aware of Iraq's move before it happened, while others probably advised the regime to accept inspectors as soon as possible. They also likely assured Baghdad that the United Nations would never support an American attack if inspectors were allowed back in.
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan singled out the role of the League of Arab States in bringing about Iraq's decision. Russian, European and Chinese diplomats have been in almost permanent touch with their Iraqi counterparts in the last few days as well. The sigh of relief so many U.S. allies breathed after Iraq's announcement suggests this could have been a coordinated multilateral effort to delay a U.S. military action against Iraq.
Iraq may have informed some governments directly about its decision before it was announced. STRATFOR sources in Arab and European diplomatic communities say that several foreign governments privately confirmed to Iraqi officials that they would never change their position on the inadmissibility of attacking Iraq if inspectors were let in to the country.
In particular, some Syrian and Persian Gulf diplomats based in Europe say that Saudi Arabia, France and many others have not in fact changed their minds on the Iraq issue and are promising Baghdad forms of diplomatic, political and public relations support to stave off the U.S war and eventually to bring about the end of sanctions.
A very different international climate is forming around the Iraq issue since Baghdad's recent promise, a climate that strongly favors putting war on hold indefinitely and letting inspectors do their job. Even if Hussein does not kick inspectors out of the country, the Bush administration still may opt to launch a unilateral war on Iraq on the basis that it believes the regime is hiding weapons of mass destruction.
Hussein will do whatever he can to hide any weapons he may have. And without solid proof from the inspections teams, much of the world will not be on the U.S. side.
Too many allies do not want a U.S. war on Iraq, including those cooperating in the war against al Qaeda. Europe, for example, is afraid that its economy -- which is almost solely dependent on energy imports -- will be hit much harder than the U.S. economy in the event of an attack, according to statements by Belgium's finance minister Sept. 17 at Salzburg's Economic Forum.
Moreover, demands will grow steadily to lift sanctions on Iraq in order to ease the suffering of the Iraqi people. And with inspectors working inside the country, it would be too hard to lay the blame for such suffering squarely at Hussein's door. A unilateral attack on Iraq in such conditions, with inspectors still in the country, would dramatically worsen U.S. relations with the rest of the world.
Bush's speech at the United Nations Sept. 12 put the organization and Iraq on the spot: both would either have to act -- the United Nations by adopting a tough line on Iraq, and Iraq by accepting inspectors -- or lose. Iraq fired back by pledging to accept inspectors unconditionally. Now this has put the Bush administration on the spot: It will have to either attack Iraq unilaterally or hold off on an attack to show the world that it still cares about a coalition.
The former option looks easier for the United States to deal with, but given the negative ramifications -- worldwide backlash against Washington and tactical difficulties in fighting the war alone -- the U.S. administration is likely to stick with the coalition for the immediate future. This is evident in Powell's efforts to craft an enforceable U.N. resolution on Iraq. But in the longer run, it might become too hard for Washington to cooperate with the international community.
The coming days will show where the Saudis and others are in regard to the U.S. war effort. But it would be naive to expect that the world will support an attack without U.N. backing.
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