Gulf Conflict II?

A decade after the end of the Gulf Conflict, Washington is once again casting an angry eye at Saddam Hussein. U.S. President George W. Bush makes no secret of the fact that he would like to see Saddam depart the scene. Though it is tempting to suggest that the president is pursuing the unfinished business of George Bush Sr., this is not necessarily the case. Regime change in Baghdad is a political objective that stands in sharp contrast to the largely military goal of liberating Kuwait. The first Bush administration learned, belatedly, that political objectives tend to be more complex and the attendant military risks are correspondingly greater. The second Bush administration must now revisit these lessons.

The first Bush administration was understandably reluctant to broaden its objectives following the Gulf conflict. The international coalition that defeated Saddam showed little sign of surviving its own success. A host of voices from within the United Nations argued against intervention. Some even argued against sanctions. If violence was indeed a prominent feature of Iraqi political culture, then perhaps a toothless Saddam was better than no Saddam at all. He could be isolated regionally while the Iraqi political elite were induced by sanctions to end his tenure. Thus George Bush Sr. invited the Iraqi people to "take matters into their own hands," even as the White House pronounced publicly that there was no mandate for regime change. Meanwhile, Gen. Colin Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned of the quagmire the United States could be drawn into if it chose to intervene in a nascent Iraqi civil war. Liberating of Kuwait was an unqualified military success that only "mission creep" could undermine.

A decade later, there remain appealing reasons to overthrow Saddam. He is a brutal dictator and a perennial source of instability in the region. He stands in open defiance to the United Nations and weapons inspections. Questions remain as to whether Saddam can be effectively deterred. Moreover, the forward military presence that is designed to ensure regional stability in the face of a revisionist Iraq is itself a source of instability in the Gulf. Sorting out Iraq, therefore, is a precondition for minimizing the U.S. presence elsewhere in the region. After Sept. 11, the stakes seem greater. In the view of the second Bush administration, weapons of mass destruction provide a link between recalcitrant states such as Iraq and the likes of Osama bin Laden. Terrorism, the president argued in his annual State of the Union address, has a geopolitical context.

The war on terrorism may provide a justification for dealing with Saddam, as the president argues. But it also suggests a multilateral approach, and not even America's closest allies are convinced of the wisdom of unseating Saddam. The first Bush administration found that allowing Saddam to remain in power was a requirement for sustaining the international consensus against the Iraqi dictator. The second Bush administration now confronts a similar paradox.

There seem to be few attractive strategies for unseating Saddam short of a full-scale military intervention. Turkey has its own Kurdish problem to cope with and the Saudis are suspicious of a Shi'ite dominated government, as is the United States. Arming either of these prominent Iraqi factions appears untenable. By all accounts, Saddam's internal security apparatus remains an efficient tool, and the CIA sees few candidates for a palace coup. There may be disaffected elements within the military, but the evidence suggests that the Republican Guard and the Special Republican Guard remain effective watchdogs in this regard. Some members of the administration have hung their hopes on the Iraqi National Congress, an unwieldy umbrella group of opposition elements. The INC has found some support on a political level in Washington. But it commands little support at the CIA and the State Department, and is not seen a capable challenger even with substantial American support.

Emboldened by America's speedy victory in Afghanistan, some now call for a comparable approach in Iraq. They argue that, after a decade of sanctions, Saddam Hussein has never been weaker or more despised by his own people. Similar voices were heard following Iraq's humiliating defeat in 1992. Speaking to the BBC a month after the conclusion of hostilities, then-Secretary of Defense Richard Cheney spoke in a way that still resonates:

"If we'd gone to Baghdad and got rid of Saddam Hussein — assuming we could have found him — we'd have had to put a lot of forces in and run him to ground some place. He would not have been easy to capture. Then you've got to put a new government in his place and then you're faced with the question of what kind of government are you going to establish in Iraq? Is it going to be a Kurdish government or a Shi'a government or a Sunni government? How many forces are you going to have to leave there to keep it propped up, how many casualties are you going to take through the course of this operation?"

The world awaits the answers.

 

Dr. Michael Donovan CDI Research Analyst mdonovan@cdi.org

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