Clinton Legacy Watch # 10: Administration Ineptitude, Appeasement Put Saddam, Primakov Back in Driver’s Seat

(Washington, D.C.): While it may be some time before the full extent of the damage done by the
Clinton Administration’s mishandling of latest Iraqi crisis is clear, the early returns are in:
Saddam and his patrons in Moscow, Beijing and Paris have won this round decisively, at the
expense of the United States, its interests and allies in the Middle East.

Consider the following preliminary assessment broken down into two categories —
1) the results even if the U.S. does not go along with the deal brokered by Saddam Hussein’s
former KGB handler, Russian Foreign Minister Yevgeny Primakov, and 2) those that will arise if
it does so, however reluctantly.

The ‘Best Case’

Even if the Administration appreciates the unacceptability of the Primakov-Saddam “diplomatic
solution” and finds the courage to reject it, the United States has already suffered enormous harm
in the following areas:

• Saddam has had twenty days to advance the “shell game” he has used to good effect for
  the past six years to hide portions of his chemical, biological and nuclear weapons and ballistic
  missile programs from UN Special Commission inspectors. Just yesterday, UNSCOM
  chairman Amb. Richard Butler told the Security Council how effective such Iraqi interference
  had been when the inspectors were able to perform more-or-less continuous and real-time
  monitoring. In its absence, it is anyone’s guess just how impossible it will be to say truthfully
  and with confidence that Saddam is actually out of the Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)
  business.
• The United States has once again expended enormous sums moving aircraft, ships and
  personnel on a crash basis into the Persian Gulf, taking a considerable toll on the morale of
  its military personnel and the physical condition of their assets. Such a price in terms of
  reduced readiness, foregone modernization and exacerbated retention problems would
  arguably be worth paying if the expenditure thus entailed were to translate into an end to the
  threat posed by Saddam and his clique. As that is assuredly not the case, however, the
  expenditure can only be described as an unjustifiable squandering of precious defense
  resources.
• Russia has once again been allowed to become a key player in the Middle East, a role that
  it has never played constructively there and that it is obviously not playing constructively now.
  The fact that the U.S. Secretary of State would cut short a long-scheduled visit to India in
  order to accommodate a trip by Primakov to Brazil, obliging her to conduct important affairs
  of state at 2:00 a.m., conveys a powerful — and ill-advised — signal to Moscow and the rest of
  the world: The United States is prepared to act like a supplicant, not “the world’s only
  superpower” it endlessly claims to be. This is an invitation to precisely the sort of high-handed
  treatment Messrs. Primakov and Hussein have dished out.
• This signal is compounded by the message that Saddam Hussein has once again stood up to
  the United States — and survived. When the Iraqi despot demonstrates that he can get out
  of his “box” as often as he wishes to, it powerfully reinforces the image of Americans as paper
  tigers and unreliable allies. This pattern not only emboldens Saddam. It also encourages other
  rogue actors and their would-be-prey to discount American power, a formula for increased
  instability as the former become more aggressive and the latter more willing to appease them.

Of particular concern in this regard is the prospect that both parts of the Clinton
Administration’s “dual containment” policy will fail. Not only will Iraq be seen to be
“back in business”; American efforts to persuade Iran that it will be reintegrated into
the community of “civilized” nations only if Tehran comes to terms with the United
States will be further, if not fatally, undermined.

The Primakov Option

The precise terms of the Yevgeny Primakov’s “solution” have not been revealed at this writing. It
seems safe, however, to say that there is no chance it will involve the unconditional
reintroduction of American and other UNSCOM inspectors into Iraq. Some or all of the
following appear to be part of the deal the Russians are euchring the U.S. and the UN into
accepting lest the (much-overrated and increasingly expensive) “international consensus” be
shattered:

• Assured Survival for Saddam: Thirty-five years ago, Nikita Khrushchev and Fidel Castro
  made the proverbial lemonade out of the lemon of the Cuban missile crisis. In exchange for
  withdrawing Soviet nuclear-armed ballistic missiles from the island, the Kennedy
  Administration provided assurances that further efforts to topple Castro would be abandoned.
  Now, Primakov is seeking similar assurances that the option of removing Saddam from power
  will be permanently foreclosed. The Clinton Administration may be tempted to offer such
  assurances, since its spokesmen (notably, National Security Advisor Samuel Berger and
  Defense Secretary William Cohen) have stated repeatedly that they are interested in
  “containing” Saddam, not removing him. Should they do so, however, Clinton & Company
  will be precluding the only option that has any chance of actually rectifying the source of the
  problem with Iraq — the monstrous rule of Saddam Hussein and his regime. (For a particularly
  gripping insight into just how monstrous that rule is, see the attached column by syndicated
  columnist Jim Hoagland which appears in today’s Washington Post.)
• The End of UNSCOM: The Primakov “solution” would assure the politicization of the UN
  Special Commission. The Kremlin has already begun moving on this goal by, among other
  things: effectively calling Butler on the carpet via his Russian-sponsored inquisition yesterday
  before the Security Council; convening the Commission’s multinational advisory panel for the
  purpose of performing a critical review of UNSCOM’s work; seeking to change the
  composition of the UNSCOM teams to ensure that nations friendly to Iraq are
  disproportionately represented; and changing the Commission’s reporting arrangements so as
  to create new opportunities for second-guessing and revising UNSCOM reports to the
  Security Council. If adopted, such initiatives will not only serve further to handicap the
  inspection regime but also guarantee that Iraq’s WMD programs will, in due course (and
  possibly relatively quickly), be certified as non-existent — the precondition for lifting the
  sanctions.
• The End of the Sanctions Regime: Primakov has also made much of the necessity of
  assuring Iraq that there is “light at the end of the tunnel” — a turn of phrase the old KGB man
  knows is redolent of the American defeat in Vietnam, to which Moscow greatly contributed.
  The Russians are anxious to start tapping Iraq’s petrodollar-rich market for advanced
  conventional and unconventional weaponry and thus have a powerful self-interest in ending the
  international sanctions regime. Although the Clinton Administration finds it hard to say so (at
  least on consecutive days), as long as Saddam and his ilk remain in positions to take advantage
  of the removal of sanctions, the result would be disastrous.
• Abandoning the Iraqi People: Perhaps the most enduring damage that would accrue were
  the United States to acquiesce to the Primakov gambit would be the proof thus provided that
  America is indifferent — if not positively hostile — to the Iraqi people. Those in Iraq who have
  been suffering for six terrible years under an international sanctions regime supported by the
  U.S. in lieu of a strategy for dealing with Saddam already have much cause to blame this
  country for their woes. The absence of access to authoritative information from media sources
  outside Saddam’s control enormously compounds this problem.

Were the United States formally to join with the Russians and their friends in affirming
the inviolability of Saddam’s hold on power, however, the Clinton Administration
would deserve both the contempt and the hatred his regime has been fomenting among
his populace. Such a development will make the “strategic pivot” of Iraq an even
greater force for regional instability. It may also translate into an increased readiness
on the part of Iraqis to engage in acts of violence against the U.S. and its interests.

The Bottom Line

The Clinton Administration has gone to considerable lengths since Mrs. Albright’s all-nighter with
Primakov and Company to distance itself from the Russian’s “solution.” As of this writing,
though, neither the President nor his advisors have produced a gameplan for walking back
Primakov’s cat — to say nothing of articulating a strategy for addressing the real problem, i.e.,
Saddam’s removal from power.

As the Center observed earlier in this crisis⁽¹⁾:

“…There is no practical alternative to the use of force — unilaterally, if necessary;
together with like-minded states, if possible — to bring about conditions leading to the
early end of Saddam’s reign of terror. These conditions would involve the
disruption, if not the significant destruction, of the police state apparatus upon
which the Iraqi despot depends to remain in power. In its absence, the people of
Iraq would succeed where they failed in 1991 when then-President Bush urged them to
rise up, but declined to help by suppressing the praetorian Republican Guard.”

The Center urges President Clinton formally to reject the Primakov gambit, signal his
determination to effect the prompt end of the Iraqi regime and take the necessary military,
strategic, political and informational steps necessary to bring about this objective.⁽²⁾

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1. See the Center’s Decision Brief entitled Take Out Saddam (No. 97-D 168, 10 November
1997).

2. Such steps are detailed in the above-referenced Center paper (No. 97-D 168).