France and Co. Missed the Point
and Iraq Misses Opportunity
Daily Yomiuri, March 20, 2003
Robert D. Eldridge, Ph.D.
However unpleasant it may sound, for diplomacy to work, you need military might in the background. For the threat of force to work, you need will. For this will to work, you need unity. These are the lessons of history and the realities of world affairs.
France and other countries hesitant to back up the diplomatic will (as expressed in more than a dozen United Nations Security Council resolutions) with military might missed the point about the effective way to deal with Iraq—a rogue state that possesses weapons of mass destruction (and used them on its neighbor, Iran, and own citizens, the Kurds, in the 1980s)—and ended up only making Saddam Hussein more emboldened and dangerous than ever.
This is not to say the blame for the impending outbreak of hostilities completely lies with France, as no one will dispute its origins rest with Saddam. But France’s early departure from a united approach and repeated public declarations that it was against the use of force (see rule no. 1 above) dealt a fatal blow to the show of resolve necessary (see rule no. 2) to confront an errant Iraq. (Corollary to Rule 3—private arguments among allies are okay, but not public ones, particularly in the face of a common challenge.) As a result, diplomacy seems to have failed and military action is now necessary.
France’s reasons for doing so remain far from clear. An attempt, albeit unconvincing, to explain its position was made by the French ambassador to Japan on February 25 in these pages. Its alternative visions, along the lines of a third option, for the future were also at best vague. In any case, there is no third way, only two—willing compliance or forced disarmament.
The goal in dealing with Saddam’s regime is not the peaceful disarmament of Iraq, but rather the disarmament (of its weapons of mass destruction). Of course, a structured and immediate disarmament program that does not require the use of force would have been welcomed by all countries of the world. However, Saddam, as we have seen, clearly did not choose that route this time (or over the past decade), and the international community had to be prepared to enforce its own resolutions as taken by the UN Security Council. Anything less would jeopardize the future of the Security Council, and each and every country’s own security, by permitting non-compliant states like Iraq to ignore the international will and continue its patterns of deception.
This history of deception is long. So has been Saddam’s ability to play off factions and neighbors against one another, and to exploit the weaknesses that exist in the current governing system of the United Nations. The fact that the United Nations has made little concrete progress vis-à-vis Iraq during the past 12 years suggests the poor state of affairs at the organization created in 1945 at the end of World War II “to unite our strength to maintain international peace and security.”
It goes without saying that if Saddam were a leader who respected his citizens, neighbors, and international community and was accountable in his obligations that he himself brought upon his country that he rules with an iron fist like the self-glorifying dictator he is, then we would not be in this situation. There were many chances for diplomacy to work, but the reality is that the key player, Saddam Hussein, greatly miscalculated (as he so often has done in the past) and thus missed his last opportunity.
Unfortunately, as well, the curious and untimely grandstanding by France and Co. have ironically made the use of force more inevitable rather than less, as it simply allowed Saddam to exploit the differences to buy time to prop up his ruthless regime and avoid compliance.
Much of the commentary on TV and other media seem to paint a very bleak picture, suggesting that the expected military action to secure compliance is a sad affair. I would argue differently. It would be a shame if the clearly defined international will was not enforced. That would be the greater tragedy.
Robert D. Eldridge, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of U.S.-Japan Relations and International Public Systems at the School of International Public Policy, Osaka University.