‘Wake-Up Calls’ On Terrorism: Saddam’s Plot, Clinton’s Response Reveal Shape of Things To Come

(Washington, D.C.): President Clinton is to be commended for his decision to strike Iraq in retaliation for Saddam Hussein’s aborted effort to assassinate former President George Bush. While the raid can be faulted in some respects, it represents a most welcome departure from several of the Clinton Administration’s more troubling tendencies.

The Good News

After all, the missile attack against the headquarters of the Iraqi intelligence apparatus comes after months of dithering, in which the Clinton Administration first downplayed reports that there was a plot against former President Bush. Then it impugned the quality of the evidence of such a plot. Finally, the Administration put out the word that the United States would wait to see if those charged by Kuwait with mounting the assassination attempt were convicted before contemplating any reaction.

In the end, Washington acknowledged that the Iraqi attempt on Bush’s life was real, that there was compelling evidence that it was ordered "at the highest levels of the Iraqi government" and that the U.S. needed to hit back even thought the verdict is still out in Kuwait. To its credit, the Clinton Administration acted as it had to — unilaterally — despite its endless and wrong-headed invocation of the need for multilateralism in the conduct of foreign affairs.

The Administration also properly attacked key strategic targets as opposed to the targets of previous retaliatory strikes — notably irrelevant tactical sites like air defense batteries and radars far removed from Baghdad. Further more, the operation demonstrated once again that investments in high-tech weaponry give the United States a formidable capacity to execute precision attacks over great distances with minimal unintended damage and loss of U.S. lives. Such investments, however, are being routinely sacrificed as a result of Clinton defense budget cuts.

The Bad News

That said, the raid was not aimed at destroying Saddam or even comprehensively degrading his power base as the Center has consistently called for. Indeed, Washington continues to signal that the Iraqi tyrant is not its target, that it is up to his people to depose him. This line is ominously reminiscent of the misbegotten Bush policy that allowed Saddam Hussein to survive the Gulf War with his international security apparatus essentially intact and able to crush those who foolishly rushed into its maw at Mr. Bush’s encouragement.

Coming as it does, moreover on the heals of repeated Clinton Administration signals of interest in normalizing relations with Saddam and U.S. inaction in the face of his repeated provocations, the limited nature of the retaliation may actually have the effect of reinforcing dangerous perceptions in Iraq and beyond: The United States remains unwilling to come to grips with the root cause of state-sponsored terrorism, namely ruling cliques like Saddam Hussein’s that plot, support and otherwise facilitate deadly aggression.

If so, the recent spate of increased terrorist attacks on American citizens, institutions, and assets — and those of the United States’ key allies — may simply be the most immediate penalties paid for the nation’s retreat from world leadership and the precipitous dismantling of much of its military power begun under the Bush Administration and being carried forward with a vengeance by its successor. Should the nation persist, however, in the neo-isolationist tendencies of the past few years and proceed with the cashiering of its defense establishment, intelligence community and dominant global position, it is predictable that such present costs will pale compared with those that will have to be borne down the road.

The Bottom Line

The Center for Security Policy believes that Saddam Hussein should not be the only one who, in the words of Secretary of Defense Les Aspin, gets a "wake-up call." Instead, every American should be reminded by the latest terrorist incidents that politics, like nature, abhors a vacuum. U.S. interests — for example, in international commerce and tourism, to say nothing of domestic security — will be increasingly in jeopardy if the Iraqi, Iranian, Sudanese, Syrian, Serbian, or North Korean regimes sense opportunities to engage with virtual impunity in terrorism or larger-scale aggression.

To be sure, a decision to end the slide toward national impotence by restoring the robustness of the U.S. military and reasserting America’s commitment to be fully engaged in international affairs is unlikely to preclude terrorism in the future. When combined with a vigorous counter-terrorism intelligence effort, however, such steps will make the United States a much less inviting target than it is currently becoming.