Questions For April Glaspie: No More Illusions about Mideast ‘Opportunities’

(Washington, D.C.): In anticipation of
a Senate Foreign Relations Committee
hearing today with April Glaspie, the
former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, the
Center for Security Policy urged the
Committee to address the $64 billion
question: How can the
United States avoid repeating in the
post-war Middle East the mistake it so
clearly made in Iraq prior to
Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait?

The Center believes that Amb. Glaspie
has been wrongly assigned exclusive
responsibility for the failed U.S. policy
of coddling Saddam Hussein. In her
regrettable meeting with the Iraqi despot
in July 1990 — in which she allegedly
told him the “United States had no
view of Arab-Arab territorial
disputes” such as his with Kuwait —
as with her Foreign Service career more
generally, she merely exemplified
an attitude toward the Arab world
prevalent in the State Department’s Near
East and South Asia
(NESA) Bureau.

Simply put, the NESA party line holds
that no matter how despotic, how
ruthless or how anti-Western Arab
strongmen may be, there are
“opportunities” for
making common cause with them that will
advance U.S. interests in the region.
While Amb. Glaspie is a
particularly assertive proponent of this
view, Secretary of State Baker and others
in the State Department under this
Administration — and its predecessors —
must share in the blame for translating
it into a policy that wooed Saddam
Hussein with such generous concessions
as:

• removing Iraq from the list of
  state-sponsors of terrorism;
• approving unwise technology
  transfers and commercial credits,
  much of which wound up adding to
  Iraq’s dangerous military
  capabilities;
• re-flagging ships to protect
  Iraq’s cash flow and fund its war
  with Iran; and
• resumption of diplomatic
  relations at the ambassadorial
  level.

In hindsight, it is clear that
this policy approach was seriously
flawed. What is of immense importance,
however, is understanding why it
was flawed — especially insofar
as the United States is now being urged
to repeat such an approach toward other
Arab strongmen.

Accordingly, the Center recommends
that members of the Foreign Relations
Committee pursue the following line of
questioning with Amb. Glaspie and other
Administration officials:

• Amb. Glaspie, you seemed to
  believe that an important
  “opportunity” existed
  to advance U.S. interests by a
  forthcoming policy toward Saddam
  Hussein. Did you in fact believe
  this to be the case and if so,
  why?
• Obviously, such an
  “opportunity” was not
  realized. To what do you ascribe
  that failure — was it our fault
  or Saddam’s?
• If you believe that Saddam
  Hussein was responsible for this
  lost “opportunity,” do
  you believe that it was the
  result of some change in his
  policy or behavior? If so, what
  evidence do you have of such a
  change?
• In fact, is it not true that
  fundamentally the policies and
  behavior he exhibited in invading
  Kuwait were of a piece with his
  earlier behavior — brutally
  repressive at home and lawlessly
  aggressive abroad?
• Consequently, would it not be
  more accurate to say that we
  had been deluded insofar as we
  minimized the dangers inherent in
  such abiding policies and
  behavior and that we ultimately
  paid dearly for indulging in such
  delusions?
• Is it not the case that we
  stand in jeopardy of repeating
  these mistakes in chasing
  will-of-the-wisp
  “opportunities” for a
  convergence of U.S. interests
  with other Arab strongmen —
  whose fundamental policies and
  behavior are equally unchanged
  and reprehensible as those of
  Saddam Hussein — for
  example Syria’s Hafez el Assad
  and the radical leadership of the
  Palestine Liberation
  Organization?
• Should we not view the
  concessions now being made to
  Assad — for example, acceding to
  his conquest of Lebanon,
  encouraging billions in foreign
  aid to Syria from the Gulf states
  and consideration of a permanent
  Syrian military presence in Saudi
  Arabia — as troublingly akin to
  concessions previously and
  regrettably made to Saddam?
• As a knowledgeable specialist in
  Arab affairs, what substantive
  difference can you discern
  between the ambitions, policies
  and behavior of Assad and those
  of Saddam Hussein?