‘I.S.O. JIMMY CARTER’: BEST CASE, SADDAM EXPECTS TO BE REWARDED FOR NOT INVADING KUWAIT; WORST CASE, IT’S WAR

(Washington, D.C.): Saddam Hussein’s threatening moves
of the past few days — and the renewed threat they pose
to Kuwait — should be a cold shower for President
Clinton and his national security team. After all, it
demonstrates in the most graphic way imaginable the
contempt with which the world’s despots now hold America
and its leadership.

Like the other members of what the Center for Security
Policy has called the Radical Entente⁽¹⁾ — folks like
Somalia’s Aideed, Serbia’s Milosevic, Haiti’s Cedras,
North Korea’s Kim dynasty, China’s gerontocracy, and the
Russian imperialists — Saddam has clearly read Mr.
Clinton’s policies: The United States is no
longer seen as a deterrent to aggressive agendas; to the
contrary, its hapless policies are now inviting and
rewarding them.

Clinton’s Chickens Come Home to Roost

Let there be no mistake about it: The combined effect
of presidential disinterest in security policy, the
dismantling of vital defense capabilities and
institutions and the chronic inability to define and
adhere to a principled course of action in international
affairs have left American interests and allies around
the world dangerously exposed.

Saddam Hussein’s latest military moves may signal the
imminent resumption of hostilities with Kuwait and its
allies. Alternatively, they may be a calculated move to
secure the immediate lifting of economic sanctions
against and other concessions to Iraq — a response he
has reason to expect, notwithstanding the Clinton
Administration’s initial bluster, given its own past
practice and that of its diplomatic subcontractor, Jimmy
Carter.

So Learn the Lessons, Already

Either way, a few lessons that should have been
learned long ago are now painfully clear:

• The United States could very well find
  itself engaged in two simultaneous regional
  conflicts in distant parts of the globe.
  Thanks to the draconian cuts in Pentagon
  investment, operations and maintenance in recent
  years — cuts that go well beyond those
  contemplated by the Bottom-Up Review, a plan that
  itself would not permit the United States to
  fight two wars at the same time — the United
  States would be unable to cope with any
  appreciable problem in Haiti and mount a
  concurrent major operation in the Persian Gulf.
  It should go without saying that this situation
  also makes transparently obvious why it is absurd
  to contemplate further overtaxing the U.S. force
  structure by deploying American troops on the
  Golan Heights.
• The need for America to be able to
  project power quickly to distant parts of the
  world is only increasing, not waning.
  The United States currently lacks the in-theater
  capability credibly to attack and defeat a
  renewed Iraqi attack against Kuwait. It needs,
  for example, to be able to exploit the unique
  potential of the B-2 bomber to strike swiftly,
  decisively and anywhere in a country like Iraq.
  It also needs to have troops in the region
  capable of constituting a defense on the
  ground — not just at sea. The folly of past
  — and continuing — decisions deferring
  acquisition of greatly enhanced airlift and
  sealift capabilities is painfully obvious.
• The importance of timely intelligence and
  the will to respond to early warning.
  According to press reports, the Iraqi troop
  build-up has been occurring for a week. If so,
  the fact that the United States has only begun to
  respond to this threat is a powerful reminder of:
  the continuing need for effective strategic and
  tactical intelligence in the post-Cold War world;
  the necessity for human sources and methods as
  well as sophisticated technical intelligence
  means; and the readiness to initiate
  long-lead-time actions necessary to respond —
  even if that requires doing so on the basis of
  preliminary or inconclusive information.
• It was a gross strategic error to allow
  Saddam Hussein to remain in power at the end of
  the Gulf War.⁽²⁾
  The United States has only itself — and some of
  its more short-sighted regional allies — to
  blame for making this mistake. No effort should
  be spared now to bring Saddam’s reign of terror
  to a swift end.
• The prospect that Saddam Hussein was
  close to getting international sanctions lifted
  — and may yet do so — is further evidence of
  the recklessness of dismantling the United
  States’ limitations on the overseas sale of
  strategic technologies and the multilateral
  export control regime. There is already
  abundant evidence that Saddam Hussein is
  successfully rebuilding his military-industrial
  complex.⁽³⁾
  In the absence of a complete policy reversal by
  the Clinton Administration, the danger posed by
  Iraqi capabilities and those of other tyrants
  exploiting vanishing Western strategic export
  controls will become infinitely greater.
• Last, but hardly least, the United States
  can no longer tolerate a situation in which it,
  its forces overseas and its friends in the Middle
  East (like Israel, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia) and
  beyond remain utterly vulnerable to missile
  attack. Saddam Hussein did not
  effectively exploit that vulnerability the last
  time. There is no guarantee that he — or his ilk
  — will not do so in the future. In fact, there
  is every reason to believe one or more of them will,
  with devastating consequences for American
  interests and allies.

The Bottom Line

The only way to deal with the present crisis
is to mobilize and deploy significant ground forces to
the Persian Gulf at once. Saddam is believed to
be moving some 26,000 troops toward Kuwait. At least
one-third that number should be dispatched immediately to
the Gulf. Such forces are critical to restoring
deterrence and giving the United States the wherewithal
to defeat Saddam’s forces should it be necessary to do so
once again.

Under no circumstances should the United
States try to “buy off” Saddam — with or
without Jimmy Carter’s meddling. This policy in
North Korea, China, Bosnia and Haiti has already
contributed to the present crisis. It will be infinitely
worse if the U.S. now agrees, in the face of Saddam’s
latest blackmail, to lift sanctions, allowing oil sales,
imports of sensitive technology, etc. The mind reels at
what further outrages such a policy would inspire in the
Persian Gulf and beyond.

– 30 –

1. For more on the Radical
Entente, see the Center for Security Policy’s Decision
Briefs: Will the Senate Give
Russia A Subsidy To Serve As the Radical Entente’s
‘Fed-Ex’ Service? ( href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=93-D_79″>No. 93-D 79, 15 September
1993) and A Good Week for the ‘Radical
Entente’: Outlaw Nations Likely Emboldened By Ineffectual
Western Responses ( href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=93-D_28″>No. 93-D 28, 2 April
1993).

2. In this regard, see the Center
for Security Policy’s recommendations contained in such
products as: ‘Wake-Up Calls’ on Terrorism:
Saddam’s Plot, Clinton’s Response Reveal Shape of Things
To Come (No.
93-D 54, 28 June 1993); Clinton’s New
Mideast ‘Containment’ Strategy: Start By Punishing Saddam
for Trying To Kill George Bush ( href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=93-D_41″>No. 93-D 41, 21 May 1993);
Saddam’s ‘Cheating,’ Who’s ‘Retreating’? End of His
Tyranny is Only Hope for Compliance ( href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=92-D_83″>No. 92-D 83, 27 July
1992); Wanted: Saddam Hussein, Dead or Alive
(No. 91-P 49, 12 June
1991); On To Baghdad! Liberate Iraq
(No. 91-P 16, 27
February 1991) and Don’t Let Saddam Get Away
With Murder (No.
91-P 11, 14 February 1991).

3. See for example an article
entitled “CIA: Iraq Dodges U.N. Monitoring,” in
today’s Washington Times.