Bulletin de liaison et d'information - Institut kurde de Paris
Bulletin de liaison et d'information - Institut kurde de Paris
Bulletin de liaison et d'information - Institut kurde de Paris
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Revue <strong>de</strong> Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentro <strong>de</strong> la Prensa-Basm Öz<strong>et</strong>i<br />
The agreement<br />
VIEWPOINT<br />
Josef Joffe<br />
Saddam's Shell Game<br />
Kofi Annan brought back from Baghdad may not last long<br />
LASf TIME, JUST BEFORE THE CRUISE MISSILES SWOOPED want Monsieur X, and not this American spy"). He will play<br />
in over Iraq in 1991, peace-min<strong>de</strong>d Germans hung Kofi Annan against the hardliner head of UNSCOM, Richard<br />
white she<strong>et</strong>s from their windows. Since Berlin wasn't Butler. He will watch calmly as Washington and Britain, railing<br />
furiously, will be stymied by Moscow, <strong>Paris</strong> and Beijing<br />
the targ<strong>et</strong>, the symbolism was a bit muddled. Were they<br />
capitulating to the Americans? Did they want to surren<strong>de</strong>r as<br />
surrogateS of Saddam? Hardly.<br />
in the Security Council.<br />
Meanwhile, Saddam continues with his old shell game,<br />
The white-she<strong>et</strong> warriors wanted to conquer the moral only opening up those sites where materials of mass <strong>de</strong>struction<br />
high ground and tell those r<strong>et</strong>rogra<strong>de</strong> Americans that, by unleashing<br />
have been whisked away. Then, arguing the finer<br />
their might, they were more evil than Saddam. The points of the agreement, he will stonewall where the inspectors<br />
message of the pure-at-heart was: Absolutely nothing is<br />
want to intru<strong>de</strong>.<br />
worth fighting for.<br />
Why is this so easy to predict? Because Saddam has not<br />
This time, there was no bedding at the windows because<br />
the script had changed. This time, the United States wasn't<br />
been seized by a sud<strong>de</strong>n epiphany, and because he has <strong>de</strong>voted<br />
all ofhis almost 20 years in power to amassing nuclear,<br />
calling in its chits or twisting arms to harness a worldwi<strong>de</strong> chemical and biological weapons. War in 1991 has not<br />
coalition against Iraq. As a high U.S.officialput it in early February:<br />
stopped him, and neither have the sanctions and inspections<br />
Please join, but if you<br />
since. In<strong>de</strong>ed, a man who<br />
won't, do not un<strong>de</strong>rmine us<br />
would rather starve his people<br />
and kindly g<strong>et</strong> out of the way.<br />
than yield surely has pri-<br />
This whiff of irresolution-and<br />
orities other than rejoining<br />
the option of neu-<br />
the community of nations as<br />
trality-ma<strong>de</strong> all the difference.<br />
its most recent convert to the<br />
Cheering from the<br />
gospel of meek-min<strong>de</strong>dness<br />
si<strong>de</strong>lines, Germany pledged,<br />
and responsibility.<br />
in the words of Chancellor<br />
Although Saddam may<br />
Helmut Kohl, "full political<br />
have ''blinked'' when he<br />
support, " and there was only a<br />
smattering of German protestors<br />
signed the Annan pledge, it is<br />
the United States and Britain<br />
who took to the stre<strong>et</strong>s.<br />
who have been swallowing<br />
The serious opposition<br />
hard ever since. Theirs is a<br />
came from America's ol<strong>de</strong>st<br />
ally France, and its more recent<br />
tactical victory that might y<strong>et</strong><br />
turn into a strategic <strong>de</strong>bacle<br />
comra<strong>de</strong>-in-world-or-<br />
because the anti-Saddam<br />
<strong>de</strong>r, Russia. This bo<strong>de</strong>s ill for<br />
the dicey business ahead as<br />
cot'lition is no more.<br />
France and Russia, aspiring<br />
to be world players again,<br />
Washington and London try Diplomacy prevailed as Kofl Annan averted the bombing of InHI<br />
to enforce the Iraqi commitment<br />
have put the U.S. on notice<br />
to "immediate, unconditional and unrestricted" access<br />
to all suspected weapons sites. In<strong>de</strong>ed, one might well argue<br />
that they are going back to the ol<strong>de</strong>st game of nations: countervailing<br />
No.1 to maintain the balance of power. The other<br />
that France's and Russia's increasingly pronounced tilt to-<br />
Europeans, with the exception of Britain, will rally to the<br />
ward Iraq caused the November-to-February crisis in the<br />
.first place. Watching the battle for pri<strong>de</strong> and prestige unfold<br />
in the U.N. Security Council, Saddam surely conclu<strong>de</strong>d last<br />
fall that this was a fine moment to test great-power cohesion .<br />
and to drive a few more wedges into the crumbling coalition.<br />
Has he been disabused? Not at all, as already <strong>de</strong>monstrated<br />
by the events since KofiAnnan, U.N. Secr<strong>et</strong>ary-General,<br />
r<strong>et</strong>urned from Baghdad. While the United States and<br />
Britain <strong>de</strong>man<strong>de</strong>d a new resolution pre-authorizing swift r<strong>et</strong>aliation<br />
if Iraq fails to comply, French Presi<strong>de</strong>nt Jacques<br />
Chirac loudly rejected any "automatism." Hearing this, Saddam<br />
must have purred with pleasure. The scenario is proceeding<br />
exactly as he had calculated. Soon, the Anglo-American<br />
armada assembled around the Gulf will dwindle away.<br />
Soon, he will play the "Inspector's Game, Part II.''<br />
He will attack the procedure and the personalities-what<br />
might be inspected when, who might be on the team ("I<br />
posse with the same enthusiasm as did the good townsfolk<br />
who left Gary Cooper alone to confront the three baddies in<br />
HighNoon.And the U.N.'s KofiAnnan,havingtasted theglory<br />
of high-level mediation, will not so soon play handmai<strong>de</strong>n<br />
to American strategy.<br />
But the Anglo-American game isnot lost. Clinton's best argument<br />
continues to be that only the dispatch of superior firepower<br />
has sobered Saddam. Washington and London could<br />
remind their half-ally France that anthrax "Ma<strong>de</strong> in Iraq"<br />
might not be worth the glory of standing up to No. I-or the<br />
profits to be ma<strong>de</strong> from Iraqi oil fields. Mr. Clinton might also<br />
tell Mr. Yeltsinthat, next time, he will have to choose more discriminately<br />
b<strong>et</strong>ween American and Iraqi benevolence.<br />
And to the rest of the world, Mr. Clinton might pose this<br />
simple question: If you don't want us to do the dirty work,<br />
are you willing to dispatch your fle<strong>et</strong>s and your planes? For<br />
diplomacy without swords is but words.<br />
•<br />
TIME. MARCH 9, 1998<br />
17