By meeting the U.N. demand on weapons inspections, Iraq has seemingly managed to galvanise Russia, China and France to stay a U.S.-led attack on it under a U.N. mandate.
IN allowing United Nations inspectors to scout around freely for any weapons of mass destruction on its soil, an embattled Iraq appears to have sown divisions among the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council. By meeting the U.N. demand that it not set any conditions on the visit of the weapons inspectors, Iraq has managed to galvanise France, Russia and China, three key members who are armed with the veto power, to stay a U.S.-led attack on it under a U.N. mandate.
Thus Iraq has managed to widen the fault lines in the Security Council on two key issues. Contrary to the U.S. standpoint, some Council members, especially Russia, oppose the need for a fresh U.N. resolution on Iraq. This upsets U.S. plans, as Washington is seeking a new Security Council mandate that would undermine the importance of inspections and encourage the use of force against Baghdad. But Moscow, on its part, has been indicating that inspections are important and should be given a fair chance of implementation before a new course of action is adopted. In other words, Russia is seeking to deprive the U.S. of the cover of the U.N. to attack Iraq whenever it wants.
Iraq's gambit also brought into focus the question of a "regime change" in Iraq, where again the Security Council appears to be divided. While disarming Iraq is important, France, Russia and China, unlike the U.S., have not shown any enthusiasm to unseat Saddam Hussein.
Faced with resistance from within the Council, U.S. President George Bush, not surprisingly, has begun to emphasise Washington's willingness to take unilateral action against Iraq in case the Security Council fails to arrive at a consensus. Bush has received a war document from the Pentagon, detailing at great length the military options against Iraq.
AN exercise of unilateralism on Iraq outside the U.N.'s legal framework, however, may not be easy, for it could widen the rift between Washington and its allies and raise the political costs of an attack on Iraq to a dangerously high level. While Saddam Hussein may have drawn impressive diplomatic benefits from his recent move, he may not have had any choice but to let the U.N. inspectors in, analysts say. Iraq's decision to announce its willingness to allow inspections a tactical shift from its earlier position of rock-defiance to conciliation appears to have been forced upon it. In fact, a shift in the Iraqi position came about after key countries in its neighbourhood began to demonstrate their capitulation to U.S. pressures.
The classic example of somersault on Iraq came from Saudi Arabia. After vigorously opposing a U.S. attack on Iraq for months, Saudi Arabia announced in mid-September that it would cooperate with the U.S, provided a decision to use force against Baghdad was taken through the U.N. route. "If the U.N. takes a decision, by the Security Council to implement a policy of the U.N., every country that has signed the U.N. Charter has to fulfil it," Saudi Foreign Minister Saud Al-Faisal told CNN television in an interview. Clarifying further that Saudi Arabia would participate in a U.N.-sanctioned decision to use force on Iraq, Prince Saud said that "a decision of the Security Council under Chapter Seven (of the Charter) is binding on every member-country". After stating its position, Riyadh turned the heat on Baghdad and urged it to open up its facilities for U.N. inspection. "Since Iraq says it does not possess weapons of mass destruction and has no plans to produce any, why doesn't it agree to the return of inspectors to settle the issue?" Prince Saud asked in an interview to Al-Hayat, an Arabic newspaper.
Saudi Arabia's endorsement of a U.N.-mandated use of force against Iraq in a way reflected the mood in most Arab capitals. This mood amounted to the thinking that war had to be avoided, but if it became inevitable, it was preferable either to step aside from the firing line or participate in a U.S.-led campaign.
The dominant Arab approach to Iraq was summed up by Jordan's former Information Minister, Saleh Qallab. Discussing Jordan's approach to the crisis, Qallab wrote in the London-based pan-Arab daily Ashraq Al-Awsat that " like all its fellow Arabs, Jordan has announced time and again its opposition to any American or non-American military action against Iraq and will continue to oppose such action until the last moment". He, however added, that "if it (an attack on Iraq) happens, Jordan, like all other Arab states, will not leap to the trenches and will not tie its fate to that of Saddam Hussein's regime."
Iraq, even prior to the declaration of the Saudi position, had sensed its growing isolation and begun to feel mounting pressure from the Arab world to allow weapons inspections. The Secretary-General of the Arab League, Amr Mousa, speaking at a meeting of the organisation's Foreign Ministers in Cairo on September 4, pointed out that members of the regional body had collectively supported the return of weapons inspectors. The collapse of Arab resistance to U.S. pressures is explained partly by the fact that most countries in the region, apart from demonstrating questionable political will, find that they do not possess the necessary leverages to defy the U.S effectively. Unlike in 1973, when an unprecedented Arab oil embargo could shake up the global economy, Arab countries are discovering three decades later that oil no longer is a weapon available to them. The Paris-based International Energy Agency has emerged as a counterpoint to the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), by steering the creation of strategic reserves of oil to offset any sudden shortages in supply. Besides, oil production outside the Gulf region has increased substantially. Russia, for instance, has been meeting most of the new demand for oil worldwide. Russia, in fact, has established a terminal at its northern port of Murmansk that is dedicated to the supply of oil to the U.S. Africa has emerged as another prominent source of oil.
Acknowledging the new rules of the oil game, Saudi Arabia's Prince Talal bin Abdulaziz al Saud, who chairs the Arab Gulf Programme in support of humanitarian causes, has stressed that the Arabs do not have the option to threaten the Americans by withholding oil supplies. Apart from alternative sources of supply beyond the Gulf, the U.S., he said, was looking at Iraq where "oil springs can be occupied".
Analysts, however, point out that despite the diversification of procurement, the industrialised world's dependence on Gulf supplies is still significant. Nearly 30 per cent of the U.S. supplies of crude in 2001 came from the Gulf, with half of it sourced from Saudi Arabia. Some of the U.S. allies, like Japan, are still hugely dependent on the Gulf for their energy supplies. While the vulnerability of the industrialised world to short-term disruption of oil supplies may have been overcome considerably, these nations may still not have the capacity to acquire oil outside the region to offset long-term supply shortages.
The disposition of Iran, which exercises substantial influence in the region's Shia heartland, may have been yet another factor that encouraged Iraq to let the weapons inspectors in. Iran has maintained that it opposes a U.S. war against Iraq. However, it has emphasised that it would step aside and not fall in the "trap" of involving itself in a possible conflict that mainly leaves the U.S. and Iraq embroiled in it. Iran has repeatedly asked Iraq to allow in U.N. weapons inspectors.
IRAN'S opposition to a war in Iraq is natural. Iran fears that such a war will encourage the U.S. to encircle it militarily. Iranian commentators have pointed out that the U.S.-led campaign in Afghanistan has led to the positioning of American soldiers along the country's northern borders. Another war, this time in Iraq, will give Washington an opportunity to deploy its forces along Iran's southern flank, they say.
Iran opposes a war in Iraq on another count too. It apprehends that the U.S. campaign may not be confined to Iraq but would form part of a larger exercise to change the region's geopolitical contours. Consequently, with its differences with the U.S. since the 1979 Islamic revolution still remaining irreconcilable, Iran fears that after Iraq it could be the next country to come in the U.S. firing line.
Aware of the possible fallout of a U.S.-Iraq confrontation, Iranian security and foreign policy planners have been trying to cut their losses, in case hostilities break out. Not surprisingly, the Iranians have been signalling to the Americans their readiness to arrive at some understanding that would promote their security interests. In a conciliatory gesture, Iran allowed the Teheran-based Iraqi Shia leader heading the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), Ayatollah Mohammad Baqir Al Hakim, to visit Washington in August and participate in a meeting of Iraqi Opposition groups. Iran, which had cooperated with the U.S. to form a government in Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban, has stressed that its opposition to terrorism has not waned. Iran had vigorously rejected a U.S. charge that it gave shelter to Al Qaeda elements fleeing Afghanistan.
Iran's diplomatic manoeuvring has not gone down well with Iraq. Iraq's Vice-President Taha Yassin Ramadan earlier this month launched a tirade against Teheran and accused it of cooperating with Israel against the Arabs. "You will not find a single episode in history when the Persians (Iranians) have cooperated with the Arabs against the Zionists," he charged. "The designs of the Persians in the Arab world are no less that those of the Zionists, but despite that this country (Iran) remains our neighbour and we have to work towards normalising our relations," he observed.
ELSEWHERE in the region, Iraq finds that most of the smaller Gulf states hosting key U.S. military bases are, after an initial flutter of resentment, lined up behind Washington against it. Qatar's Foreign Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabor al-Thani, who was in Washington recently, said at a press conference there that his country would consider a U.S. request for the use of its territory against Iraq. Qatar's Al Udeid air base has the longest runway in the region and is likely to become the pivot of U.S. bombing raids and surveillance missions in Iraq.
This base is capable of operating the B-52 heavy bombers that may be used to deliver 2,000-pound satellite-guided bombs on targets in Iraq. Anticipating that it may not get the same degree of cooperation as earlier from Saudi Arabia, the U.S. had begun converting the Al Udeid base into a major surveillance and command post for the region. The U.S. had earlier flown many of its AWACS, for surveillance, from Saudi Arabia's Prince Sultan air base.
While the diplomatic manoeuvres on Iraq take place in New York and Washington, the U.S. is persisting with its military preparations in the region in right earnest. General Tommy Franks, the head of the U.S. Central Command that covers the Gulf, spent two days in Qatar, where he met the Emir, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani.
A U.S. Central Command team is reportedly planning to move to Qatar and is ready for a long haul there. General Frank's meetings in Qatar were followed by a two-day conference of commanders in Kuwait, where representatives of the U.S. Marines, Special Forces and the Navy were also present. Kuwait's Camp Doha is a major warehousing complex where supplies for U.S. ground forces facing Iraq are stored. A team of Czech and German chemical weapons experts had also arrived for what has been apparently billed as a military exercise in Kuwait.
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