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The last five days have shown why America has had
so much trouble selling its case on Iraq.
Secretary of State Colin Powell's bravura
performance before the U.N. Security Council prompted many people
the world over to wonder:
Why would America not use its frightening snooping
capacity to track down and zap Saddam Hussein, now that
assassinations are part of the American foreign policy? Or just pick
him up for the International Criminal Court? Wouldn't that be more
moral than waging war and raining death and mass misery on innocent
Iraqi civilians?
Also, why has America, in contravention of
Security Council resolution 1441 of Nov. 8, been withholding its
anti-Iraq evidence from the United Nations' weapons inspectors?
And what, exactly, is the American case for
rushing to war?
That Saddam is another Hitler? That his people
need liberating?
That he has biological and chemical weapons? That
he wants to build a nuclear bomb?
That he is concealing such weapons? That he is
dodging the U.N. inspectors?
That he may attack his neighbors? That he may be
in cahoots with terrorists who could, some day, somehow, attack
America?
That he is harboring Hamas?
All of those things.
But the laundry list, domestically useful to
George W. Bush, poses problems internationally:
- Baghdad is not the only place with a Hamas
office. Would America bomb Beirut, Damascus and Tehran as well?
- Iraq is not the only rogue state. Many others
are worse.
- Regime change in Baghdad is not part of any
U.N. directive.
- Where Iraq is in serious violation of several
U.N. resolutions, it is up to the Security Council to pronounce,
`The game is over,' not Bush. It is illogical for him to be
condemning Iraq for disregarding the United Nations while
threatening to do exactly the same himself.
But there has been little logic to this enterprise,
which is why we face this stunning dichotomy: The world reviles
Saddam, yet refuses to support the Bush push to topple him. It does
not believe a word of Saddam's denials, nor does it trust Bush —
or Powell.
Even chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix is
challenging several American assertions: that Iraq is hiding and
moving banned materials, that Iraqi agents are posing as scientists,
that Iraq alone is bugging the inspectors' conversations, that there
is a "sinister nexus" between Iraq and Al Qaeda.
On the latter, others are picking Powell's case
apart, saying he got names and places wrong and that the British
intelligence dossier he cited approvingly had been copied from
published articles and a Ph.D. thesis, and contains obsolete
information.
There are four scenarios ahead, three involving
war.
1. Miraculously, Saddam agrees in this weekend's
meetings with Blix and Mohammed elBaradei to a full accounting, and
the supervised destruction, of all his banned weapons. On Friday,
when they brief the Security Council, it agrees to await their next
report, due March 1.
2. Blix and elBaradei report reaching a dead end
and the council passes the much talked about second resolution. War
can begin, legally.
3. They give a mixed report. A majority on the
council decides to give them more time. America and Britain balk and
proceed with a coalition of cronies, including such worthies as
Silvio Berlusconi of Italy. This is the nightmare scenario.
Bush understands, and hence is trying for the
following.
4. Rather than risk the veto of France or China or
both, he floats a resolution well short of authorizing war.
Veto-bearing objectors can abstain. The required majority of nine
goes along.
Russia has already been softened up with the
unconscionable concession that its butchery in Chechnya is justified
war on terrorism. Among the non-permanent members, Angola has been
promised $4.1 million (U.S.) and Guinea $2.1 million for refugee
settlements.
Among the non-members, Turkey has been bought off
with a multi-billion-dollar package and, more shockingly, a promise
to let Turkish forces occupy part of northern Iraq, so that Kurds
fleeing the war won't be able to enter Turkey and, more
strategically, won't re-float the idea of an independent Kurdish
state.
By securing a second Security Council resolution,
America hopes to ease the unprecedented anti-war pressure on the
likes of Jean Chrétien, Tony Blair ("I am fighting for my
political life"), John Howard (the first Australian prime
minister in 102 years to be censured by the senate, for his decision
to send 2,000 troops for the war) and nervous Arab leaders.
America wants war, badly, in spring, and there's
no stopping it. Let the world be damned.
Haroon Siddiqui is the Star's editorial page
editor emeritus. His column appears Thursday and Sunday.
Copyright 1996-2003. Toronto Star
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