#4
Commentary
DIPLOMATS BUSY ROUND IRAQ AS EXPERTS PROPHESY WAR
MOSCOW, October 3 /from Marianna Belenkaya, RIA Novosti analyst/ - Russia is
ready with its own draft resolution on Iraq to offer to the United Nations, says
Alexander Saltanov, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs. The Moscow option
proceeds from what is known as package agreement and insists on anti-Iraqi
sanctions gradually lifted after Iraq admits international inspectors, he
announced to a media audience.
Russia first came up with the idea early last year. It has not offered the
draft anywhere for appraisal as yet, and is waiting for Hans Blix, UNMOVIC head,
to sum up his Vienna talks with an Iraqi delegation at an UN Security Council
session.
The Vienna conferees signed an understanding to resume Iraqi armament
programme monitoring. The Security Council is discussing it today, and ensuing
Russian steps will depend on the debates due to take place on Thursday, said Mr.
Saltanov.
The USA and Great Britain offered to the Security Council a joint draft
resolution to toughen monitoring terms. If Baghdad does not put up with the
drastic provisos, a strike may come on Iraq without preliminary UN debates.
Now, Russia has something to contrast to the U.S.-U.K. draft. Judging by the
vice-minister's remark, the draft may come in handy to take an edge off United
Nations debates as Russia, France and China cannot entirely put up with the
harsher option but are loath to veto it. To all appearances, Russia's Foreign
Ministry will try to insist, as before, on the Iraqi issue to be settled by
diplomats.
Top-notch Russian politicians never doubt, despite all efforts, that the USA
will use the force of arms on Iraq. That prospect came as leitmotif as the
Postscript analytical team gathered political experts for a roundtable in Moscow
yesterday.
"Russia can do something on the United Nations even now-let say, put off
a resolution passing for a week, or change the schedule of inspectors'
arrival-but whatever it does will not change the situation," Andrei Fedorov,
political programme supervisor for the federal Foreign and Defence Political
Council, who was active at the roundtable, said to a RIA Novosti analyst.
"Russia has a choice-either to retain neutrality or warn it will veto
the U.S.-U.K. resolution," Irina Hakamada, Vice-Speaker of the State Duma,
parliament's lower house, stressed to RIA Novosti. Neutrality will not mean that
Moscow has fallen for the American idea of unilateral warfare, she reassured.
Russia has to think even now how to bring to the least possible the losses of
tentative US campaign in Iraq. It is sure to bring dire political and economic
fruit to Moscow. "After a victory in Iraq, the USA will have to reappraise
the Russian part in the anti-terror coalition as its contribution will be no
longer necessary to deal with Iran and other countries," Andrei Fedorov
remarked with reference to a high US Administration functionary.
On the other hand, the USA thinks $13 a barrel is a just petroleum price, and
will do all it can to bring current prices down. US Department of State
delegates made no secret of that as they recently visited Moscow, says Mr.
Fedorov. Once they gain access to Iraqi oilfields, US-based petroleum companies
will reduce oil extraction expenditures and their profits will not shrink even
if prices go down, while Russia will be in dire straits with federal outlays and
foreign debt payments.
If things take that bad turn, Russia has to prepare for it well beforehand,
warns Andrei Kokoshin, MP and Director of the Institute of International
Security Problems under the Russian Academy of Sciences. As parliament debates
next year's federal budget, it ought to proceed from oil prices at $15 a barrel.
Many Western companies are doing the same as they draft their business plans, he
remarked to the roundtable.
Strike on Iraq is inevitable, but the situation allows Russia to come up with
an explicit concept of counteracting the USA if it goes on redrawing the world
map, concluded the experts.
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