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From The New Republic:

http://www.tnr.com/iraq.mhtml

Guide to the Iraq Debate
by Reihan Salam

While Saddam hasn't outlasted as many American presidents as Fidel, he's managed to survive into 2003. If he plays his cards right, he just might make it through to 2004--unlikely, but not impossible. Always keep in mind the following exchange between Saddam and Egyptian journalist Sayyid Nassar that took place back in November:


Nassar: Mr. President, do you think that time is working in your favor, or against you?
Saddam: No doubt, time is working for us. We have to buy some more time, and the American-British coalition will disintegrate because of internal reasons and because of the pressure of public opinion in the American and British street. Nations know the truth and are more capable of understanding than the leaders who are preoccupied with the Zionist conspiracies that are hatched by the media, conspiracies that blind those leaders.

And indeed, Saddam has managed to capitalize on recent developments. Despite some early diplomatic successes, including the unanimous passage of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1441 that authorized the current round of inspections, the situation grows less tractable by the day. It is as though "Who Let the Dogs Out," the Baha Men's ubiquitous hit single, was less a reflection on the wily ways of man's best friend than a dark premonition concerning today's international landscape, with "dogs" standing in for various rogue states. Shockingly enough, Pyongyang is leading the pack. The crisis in Korea has moved from sinister simmering to a slow boil, and the Bush administration's ham-fisted mishandling of relations with South Korea has only made matters worse.

Not surprisingly, Saddam's minions have seized on the administration's blithe indifference to the (arguably greater) threat posed by Kim Jong Il to argue that Iraq is being unfairly targeted. According to Reuters, Al Thawra, the house organ of Saddam's Baath Party, had the following to say on December 30:

"Look how Washington deals with the two situations, how it threatens to invade Iraq, which has no weapons of mass destruction," the newspaper said.
"At the same time, the U.S. administration is saying it wants a peaceful end to the crisis with North Korea," it said.

The paper said Baghdad was cooperating fully with the United Nations. "So why do America and Britain continue to threaten it?" the paper wrote. "Is it because Iraq is an Arab country? Or because Iraq is an oil country? Or because the Zionist lobby inside the U.S. administration wants to settle old scores?"

The Washington Times reports that Saddam's infamous elder son, and possible successor, went even further:

"We Arabs need to revise our behavior towards the United States, as North Korea has done, to be respected," said the daily Babel, owned by President Saddam Hussein's elder son, Uday. The paper was referring to Pyongyang's relaunching of its nuclear program in the face of stiff U.S. criticism.
"Arabs need to learn the lesson from the Korean example to mobilize in order to stop an attack on Iraq and prevent a U.S.-Zionist crusade in the Arab world," Babel said.

Thus far, Saddam has also managed to prevent any serious defections of weapons scientists through a combination of intimidation and more aggressive measures. After refusing to cooperate for weeks, Iraqi officials finally released a list of 500 scientists. As of yet, only a handful of interviews have taken place, and there are rumors that Iraq is hiding others.
Back to the American street.

In a December 31 New York Times' op-ed titled "Iraq Belongs on the Back Burner," Warren Christopher, Carter administration veteran and Clinton's first secretary of state, offered the following observation:


North Korea's reopening of its plutonium reprocessing plant at Yongbyon puts it within six months of being able to produce sufficient weapons-grade material to generate several nuclear bombs. Contrast this with Iraq. Not only is North Korea much further along than Iraq in building nuclear weapons but, by virtue of its longer-range missiles, it has a greater delivery capability.
In closing, Christopher argued that President Bush "should take a new, broad look at the question of whether such a war [against Iraq], at this moment, is the right priority for America." Of course, Christopher would have felt the same way irrespective of events in Korea. Aside from the opening paragraphs, his op-ed reads like much Al Gore's antiwar speech at San Francisco's Commonwealth Club. This is hardly "a new, broad look."

By contrast, consider an op-ed that appeared in The Washington Post by former Clinton National Security Advisor Samuel Berger and Robert Galluci, former chief negotiator of the now defunct Agreed Framework between North Korea and the civilized galaxy. Its title alone, "Two Crises, No Back Burner," is Zen-like in its profundity, only hinting at the wisdom within: We should make nice with South Korea; most of all, we must "understand that none of the options is without risk." Deep thoughts. And yet Berger and Galluci also argue persuasively that we have to keep the pressure on Saddam:


Iraqi nuclear weapons in the near term cannot be ruled out, but they are not likely. Nevertheless, putting Iraq on hold to deal with North Korea would have serious consequences. It would send a chilling message that the United States can be knocked off course in one arena by troublemaking in another. It would drive any expectation of the constancy of our purpose into a tailspin. The president has invested American credibility in disarming Iraq. The prospect of a nuclear Iraq, which would profoundly change the political landscape of a critical region, is strategically unacceptable to us. In the absence of voluntary disarmament, sidestepping Iraq now would be an emboldening victory for Saddam Hussein, making it even more difficult to deal with him later.
With this, Berger and Galluci capture an essential truth about Saddam.

Last Monday, Michael Dobbs captured an essential truth about the American relationship with Saddam in an article that appeared in The Washington Post--specifically, that the U.S. government turned a blind eye to many of Saddam's most egregious abuses during its war with Iran and, worse yet, indirectly aided his efforts to build weapons of mass destruction. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was, according to Dobbs, "instrumental in tilting U.S. policy toward Baghdad." As a private citizen, Rumsfeld served as a special envoy to Baghdad during the Reagan administration; in this capacity, he paved the way for an extensive intelligence relationship and transfers of dual-use technologies. While this was by no means entirely unknown, the Dobbs piece does shed light on an uncomfortable past. It's difficult to believe that this won't have an effect on the Iraq debate. But what exactly does it tell us? That the American government once behaved in a manner that proved short-sighted? Some will argue that the U.S. relationship with Iraq in the 1980s should serve as a cautionary example, and they'd be right to do so. But they'd be wrong to argue that this bolsters the case against regime change. If anything, the fact of American assistance does precisely the opposite: Once you realize you've created a monster, the thing to do is slay it, not pretend it doesn't exist.

Otherwise, news reports have focused on the buildup of American troops in the Gulf region as it approaches the 100,000 mark, a landmark that should be reached in February--just in time for Hans Blix's January 27 report to the Security Council on Iraq's weapons program, the much-anticipated trigger that is expected to unleash the ultimate "bad cop." Naturally, thoughts have turned to post-war arrangements.

On Monday, David Sanger and James Dao of The New York Times described in rough outline the Bush administration's plans for a transitional administration in Iraq. It looks as though those elements in the administration that wanted a quick-and-dirty, cut-and-run strategy--the very same elements that have always been skeptical of nation-building efforts, led by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld--have lost out, at least for now. In order to prevent inter-ethnic violence that could lead to the Balkanization of Iraq, and also to dissuade neighboring states from developing spheres of influence, the preliminary plans call for a substantial occupation force that will remain in place for at least a year and a half.

There's also a plan to separate security functions--to be handled by the American military--and civilian functions--to be handled by a separate administrator who may well be appointed by the United Nations and serve under its auspices, as in transitional authorities in East Timor, Cambodia, and elsewhere. (The obvious move would be to place a Muslim in charge, but one can imagine right-leaning lobbyists derailing that enterprise.) Only leading members of Saddam's regime would be subjected to war crimes trials, as would those military personnel who willingly obeyed Saddam's orders to deploy weapons of mass destruction. Otherwise, most bureaucrats would remain in place--de-Baathification efforts, it seems, will only go so far.

To address an ugly history of human rights violations, there is talk of having Iraq follow the South African model of a truth and reconciliation commission that would provide amnesty to all those who fully acknowledged their crimes. Whether or not Iraq can sustain the kind of civil society that, despite deep inequalities, makes South Africa's approach work reasonably well is an open question.

The key questions surround Iraq's oil wealth--How will it be used? And will an occupied Iraq remain a member in good standing of OPEC? There is an unambiguous commitment to using Iraq's oil wealth to finance Iraq's reconstruction, but the OPEC question has been left in the air. That any American administration would countenance any effort to maintain OPEC's stranglehold on oil supplies strikes me as bizarre, but there are diplomatic sensitivities to consider. More immediately, there's the obvious concern that Saddam will attempt to destroy his country's oil infrastructure on his way out. In the end, military planners can only hope to mitigate Saddam's capacity for wanton destructiveness.

Whatever the case, the fact that these questions are being debated so explicitly within the administration suggests Saddam may have overlooked an important detail amid his now-familiar delay-tactics: The United States is no longer operating according to a U.N. timetable, like the bad old days of the mid-1990s. It is operating according to its own timetable. No amount of bluster about North Korea is likely to change that.