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

To: Thomas A Watson who wrote (70005)	1/29/2003 4:44:24 PM
From: Neocon	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 281500

Allow me to recycle something: The United States is the chief status quo power, that is, despite its own reformist agenda, it largely supports the international system, and tries to keep change peaceful and incremental. Iraq, after the demise of the Soviet Union, appears to be emerging as the chief revisionist power, bent on upending the international system. (Although China has regional aspirations, it appears to be content to integrate within the international system). The United States is thus, automatically, the enemy of Iraq. The Iraqi Ba'athist regime must not be mistaken for the Syrian regime, which has regional ambitions (to create a "Greater Syria"), but not global ambitions. Saddam subscribes to the view that the Arab people are a kind of master race, and should play a dominant role in the world. Although his version is secular, it obviously speaks to the sentiments of Islamofascists, who think the international system should be dominated by shari'ah states. World War Two showed us that revisionist regimes will often work together against a common foe. Stalin preferred Hitler, despite Hitler's avowed anti- Communism, although the Western powers wooed him too. Hitler allied with Japan, despite his racism. During the '80s, there is ample evidence of cooperation among terrorist groups as far- flung as the IRA, Basque separatists, Black September, and the Baader- Meinhof gang. There is also a lot of evidence of bankrolling, training, and arming coming from the Eastern bloc, primarily from the Soviet Union and Bulgaria (the Turk who shot the Polish Pope had ties to the Bulgarian secret service). It appears to be the case that certain rogue regimes, like North Korea and Iraq, have been cooperating on a number of enterprises, and that Saddam has ties to many terrorist groups. Iraq appears to be the focal point of revisionist aspirations. Not only is there danger of an accelerated nuclear arms program, along with biochemical stockpiling, but Saddam could easily walk over the regimes in the Arabian peninsula, and gain effective control over the oil economy, to either amass wealth to fund his ventures, or use to wreak Western economies. Suppose that there were a concerted series of biochemical attacks on our troops in the region? How long before there was a call to withdraw them, leaving Saddam with a free hand? This, of course, touches on the possibility of containment. When a principal part of the "coalition" against the United States is terrorist organizations, with the possibility of irregular, dirty warfare involving WMDs, delivered by supposed freelance groups, without clear assignment of responsibility or ability to make a clearcut retaliation, there is no effective deterrence. Without effective deterrence, there are only two alternatives: at some point, we go in with guns blazing, or we keep taking it on the chin until blood gushes and we throw in the towel. Containment is not really an option.