The US, Iraq and Ariel Sharon
27 September 2002
The US, Iraq and Ariel Sharon
from Michael Brown Washington
You may not have heard it, but there was a guttural, indeed primal, roar from the Rumsfelds, Rices and Cheneys of the Bush Administration when on 16 September Secretary-General Kofi Annan announced that Iraq would permit the return of UN weapons inspectors “without conditions”. The Bush team’s fears of a resumption of Baghdad’s cat-and-mouse games with the inspectors are very real and very public. It is, of course, a likely stratagem if Saddam Hussein and the people of Iraq are not unilaterally bombarded first.
Bush may have told the vice president to excise from his speeches the view that “a return of inspectors would provide no assurance whatsoever”, but the moment Iraq stated the return would be “without conditions”, the commander-in-chief joined Cheney in insisting this surely would not be the case. Speaking to congressional leaders, Bush demurred: “This statement about unconditional inspections was something he’s made in the past. He deceives, he delays, he denies. And the United States, and I’m convinced, the world community, aren’t going to fall for that kind of rhetoric by him again.”
The danger for Bush, however, is that even before the inspectors get back in, France, Russia and China could all be peeled off from any new UN Security Council resolution calling for “unfettered access” and military consequences if Iraq does not comply. Only one of the three, of course, is needed for a veto that could well test Bush’s stated intention to go at Saddam Hussein alone if need be. France, in fact, is already taking the lead in calling for a first resolution that makes no mention of military action.
Sharon’s nightmare manoeuvres
In a nightmare scenario for the Washington hawks, the Iraqi move on inspections – even with subsequent backtracking – is now occurring side by side with Ariel Sharon taking another run at forcing Yaser Arafat out of the West Bank. Sharon alone among politicians and warriors has the capacity to galvanize Palestinian support for Abu Ammar. He secured support for Arafat this spring and, having apparently learned nothing in the interim, is back at it this September.
Twenty years after overseeing the Sabra and Shatila massacre, Sharon is masterminding the piece-by-piece dismantling of the Palestinian Authority, while putting a stranglehold on the Palestinian people. Having ignored or failed to learn lessons about the Israeli leader from any of his previous deadly campaigns, the Bush Administration is content with feeble protestations emerging not from the lips of the president but from the mouths of his spokesmen.
The best the Administration could muster regarding the attack on the Ramallah compound was the typical uninspiring formula for addressing overwhelming Israeli military force: “not helpful in reducing terrorist violence or promoting Palestinian reforms”.
Fearful of a stronger UN Security Council resolution on 23 September that would resoundingly condemn Israel for its actions in Ramallah, the Bush team sought to co-opt other Council members by introducing a weaker resolution (see below). The US draft called on Israel “to cease measures in and around Ramallah, including the destruction of Palestinian civilian and security infrastructure, that aggravate the situation and that do not contribute to progress on comprehensive Palestinian civil and security reforms”. But the draft also asserted that the Palestinian Authority should bring to justice those Palestinians complicit in “terrorist acts”.
This was the first time that the US had attempted to equate the actions of Hamas and Islamic Jihad with the attackers of 11 September under a Security Council resolution passed last year following the attack. Notably absent was a concurrent call for Israel to bring to justice its own war criminals. In the event, after lengthy debate on three other drafts as well, the Security Council passed, by 14-0 with the US abstaining, a motion calling for an end to Israeli operations in Ramallah, without either mentioning Arafat by name or condemning Palestinian terrorists.
The American resolution on Ramallah and hoped-for UN action on Iraq were likely to face still greater resistance as Israel killed 9 Palestinians, according to early reports, in the Gaza Strip on 24 September.
What is not in question is that Sharon’s move against Arafat only makes more difficult Bush’s efforts to continue to enlist countries such as Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Qatar for his campaign against Iraq. Every time one assumes there must be close coordination between Sharon and Bush, the former takes it upon himself to push the envelope a little further in seeking the indulgence of the White House. He has seemingly come close, but has yet to find a limit.
Dangerous times ahead
Far more dangerous than the fear of whether Sharon will attempt to exile Arafat is whether he will attempt to remove a sizeable chunk of the Palestinian population as well. According to the Washington Post, Jordanian Foreign Minister Marwan Mu’asher, who was in Washington in late September, is seeking not only private assurances but public ones from Israel about not forcing out the Palestinian population. Just what Sharon is capable of will only be known for sure once all eyes and international correspondents are fixated on Iraq. Talk of expulsion is perhaps alarmist, but it is most certainly not far from the minds of many of the ideologues around Sharon.
The first three months of 2003 could be an extraordinarily dangerous time for Palestinians. Elections scheduled for January are an increasingly unlikely proposition. Bush claimed in his recently released “National Security Strategy” – dubbed elsewhere the “pre-emption proclamation” – that Palestinians can “count on American support for the creation of a state” if, among other things, they “embrace democracy”. Yet there is no clamour at all for January elections from the nation that fancies itself as the world’s leading democracy (albeit with a president appointed with a minority of the popular vote).
If war with Iraq is under way in January, Palestinians can expect to be under the same level of curfew they currently endure. As things stand now, elections are only slightly more unlikely than the prospect of a reticent media putting a question about the timing of Palestinian elections to Bush.
If January can be expected to be dangerous for Palestinians, this will certainly be the case for Iraqi civilians as well. Bush is moving rapidly to press both Congress and the UN for resolutions authorizing military force against Iraq. Indeed, a sweeping resolution from Congress looks quite likely by the end of September. Congressional Democrats are claiming they will rein in the president a little, but many commentators maintain that this could be every bit as broad a resolution as the 1964 Tonkin resolution. That call to arms, although the result of a non-event, was at least believed by legislators to have been precipitated by a genuine war provocation. There is no such incident at present, however, to hang on Iraq. But for many, 11 September will do nicely even if there is not a shred of evidence connecting Iraq with it.
Gore and the Democrats
A new element in the equation came with Al Gore’s speech on 23 September. The former vice president is now on the record as expressing profound reservations regarding Bush’s efforts against Iraq. At his strongest, Gore asserted: “President Bush is telling us that the most urgent requirement of the moment – right now – is not to redouble our efforts against al-Qa’ida and Bin Laden, not to stabilize the nation of Afghanistan after driving his host government from power, but instead to shift our focus and concentrate on immediately launching a new war against Saddam Hussein. And he is proclaiming a new, uniquely American right to pre-emptively attack whomsoever he may deem represents a potential future threat.”
Gore then expressed concern that Bush was seeking from Congress “the necessary authority to proceed immediately against Iraq and for that matter any other nation in the region, regardless of subsequent developments or circumstances”. Remarkably hard-hitting for a generally painstakingly careful politician, Gore maintained that Bush and some in his Administration were exchanging the tried and true practices of “deterrence” and “containment” for a policy of “dominance”. Not feeble fare for a potential 2004 presidential candidate whose campaign bumper sticker figures to read: “Re-elect Gore in 2004″.
Former presidential adviser David Gergen speculated on Fox News that the speech might invigorate Democrats to take a stronger stance on the Iraq resolution submitted to Congress by Bush. Congressional Democrats who had been looking to move beyond Iraq to get the autumn campaigns focused again on domestic issues, where Republicans are perceived as vulnerable, will now have to take another look at that strategy, according to Bill Kristol on the same programme. An expected push-over vote for Bush in Congress may yet see a bit of heated debate. Bush will almost certainly win, but not before some Democrats find their voices and ask telling questions about a battlefield without borders, costs that could run to a billion dollars per day, and long-term commitment to rebuilding Iraq.
The descent into imperialist America that Bush seems to be flitting towards without great thought, or media fanfare, should at least now raise an eyebrow or two here in the United States to go with all the arched and furrowed brows in the Middle East and Europe, outside 10 Downing Street of course.
Ian Williams adds from New York
George Bush may only have been kidding when he declared his support for enforcement of UN resolutions at the opening of the General Assembly. But no one was surprised when the first test of his resolve came from Ariel Sharon’s rampage though Ramallah in yet another clear challenge to Security Council authority.
Most members of the Council looked on favourably as Syria introduced a remarkably straightforward draft saying the Israelis should pull back. The Americans countered with what they described as a “balanced” draft, which declared Hamas to be a terrorist organization under the terms of last year’s “War on Terror” resolutions. In the end, the Europeans came up with a compromise the US had no option but to accept, or at least could abstain on. Resolution 1435 calls on the Israelis to withdraw. A US veto would, of course, have had serious consequences for any US resolution that sought to enforce UN resolutions on Iraq.
The US had already called Israeli actions “unhelpful”, which is the strongest criticism Washington permits nowadays, and there is no doubt the phones will be ringing with calls on Sharon to moderate his approach.
The Israeli Foreign Ministry immediately showed how difficult Sharon can make life for its American allies and issued a statement saying that the resolution was positive in “calling for an end to terror and for putting terrorists on trial” but said the UN demand for an immediate end to its military action was “difficult” to accept. It left open the question of whether it would overcome those difficulties and abide by the terms.
