Iraq:the transatlantic debate

Philip H. Gordon

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Occasional Papers

n°39December 2002

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Iraq:the transatlantic debate

by Philip H. Gordon

The author is a Senior Fellow in Foreign Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution inWashington, DC. He was formerly Director for European Affairs at the National SecurityCouncil and Senior Fellow for US Strategic Studies at the International Institute forStrategic Studies, London. His most recent publications include ‘Bridging the AtlanticDivide’, Foreign Affairs (forthcoming January/February 2003) and ‘Getting Seriousabout Iraq’, (with Martin Indyk and Michael O'Hanlon), Survival (Autumn 2002).

Occasional Papers

n°39December 2002

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Contents

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Summary 3

Introduction 5

The case for war 82.1 Nuclear weapons could lead Saddam to risk aggression against

his neighbours and seek to dominate the Middle East 82.2 The risk of WMD falling into the hands of terrorists 82.3 Maintaining an effective inspections regime may be impossible 92.4 The costs of the status quo 92.5 Upholding international law and the authority of

the Security Council 102.6 Pressure to disarm 10

The case against war 123.1 The potential military risks and costs are too high 123.2 The ‘day after’ problem 133.3 Undermining the war on terrrorism 133.4 Unilateral invasion would set a dangerous precedent 14

The sources of US-European disagreement 15

Does the United States need European allies in Iraq? 18

The way ahead 21

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Summary Iraq: the transatlantic debate

Most Americans see the regime of Saddam Hussein as a major threat to regional and interna-tional security that must be thwarted, even if that means threatening or even using militaryforce. If Saddam were to acquire nuclear weapons, they fear, he would seek to use them todominate the Middle East, possibly invading his neighbours as he has in the past and perhapsdeterring the United States from stopping him. His nuclear, biological or chemical weapons,moreover, might end up in the hands of Islamic terrorists who would show no compunctionabout using them against the United States, or Saddam himself might do so out of a thirst forvengeance. Whereas failure to act in Iraq would make a mockery of the United Nations Secu-rity Council and international law, a decisive action to topple Saddam would liberate the Iraqipeople, allow the United States to lift sanctions on Iraq and withdraw its forces from SaudiArabia, and perhaps make progress toward a freer and more democratic Middle East.

Europeans do not deny that the Iraqi regime is a threat, but they question whether thatthreat is so pressing that the international community should run the risk of invading an Arabcountry in the heart of the Middle East. They fear that a war in Iraq could be extremely bloody– both for the invading forces and Iraqi civilians– especially if it led to urban combat or Iraq’suse of weapons of mass destruction. Even if the initial invasion went well militarily, they doubtthat the international community would be able to impose stability and democracy in place ofSaddam and worry instead about internal conflicts over resources and power, possibly leadingto civil war. Europeans also fear that an attack on Iraq would distract from and possiblyundermine the war on terrorism, and that it would set a dangerous precedent for the unilateraluse of preventive force.

It will not be easy to overcome these differences in perspective – which result from a range ofdeeply rooted historical, cultural, strategic and domestic political factors. But it should not beimpossible either. The United States has an interest in reaching agreement with Europe on Iraqbecause of the legitimacy and potential political and financial benefits that European supportwould bring. Europeans have an interest in agreement, because a US decision to invade Iraqunilaterally would undermine the UN Security Council, severely damage transatlantic rela-tions, expose the weakness of Europe’s common foreign policy and exclude European coun-tries from influence in Iraq afterwards. By going to the United Nations on 12 September 2002to demand fulfilment of UN Security Council resolutions, President Bush implicitly recognisedthe importance the United States attaches to winning allied support. And while Europeansmay be sceptical that Bush will ever agree to anything short of regime change, they should knowthat their own policy decisions will strongly influence the debate in Washington: the more theycan convince Americans that they are serious about demanding an end to Iraq’s weapons of

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mass destruction programmes, the more likely the United States will be to accept an outcomeshort of war.

This paper proposes a common US-European strategy: joining together to demand, underthe threat of an invasion that would change the Baghdad regime, Iraq’s full compliance withUN Security Council resolutions calling for an end to its weapons of mass destruction pro-grammes. If Iraq failed to comply with a new UNSC resolution reiterating these demands andsetting forth a new verification regime, the United States and Europe would together over-throw Saddam Hussein and undertake a major reconstruction and peacekeeping effort inIraq. If, on the other hand, Saddam did give up his weapons of mass destruction under the cre-dible threat of military force, the United States would forgo plans for invading Iraq so long asBaghdad complied with existing and new UNSC resolutions. Neither Americans who aredetermined to change the Iraqi regime nor Europeans resolutely opposed to war will be enti-rely satisfied with such an approach – the former because it might mean deferring regimechange and the latter because it implies a readiness to go to war. But it is a far better course thaneither of the main alternatives: a potentially very costly US invasion of Iraq (even more costlyif the United States has to bear responsibility for it alone) or having to live with a nuclear-armed Saddam Hussein.

Iraq: the transatlantic debate

1

Introduction

I t would be wrong to stereotype the positionsof ‘Americans’ and ‘Europeans’ in the Iraq

debate; in fact, there are a range of positions onboth sides — and especially on the Americanside. It is, none the less, possible to speak broadlyabout predominant views on each side of theAtlantic. These differences are among the mostpowerful pieces of evidence for the now wides-pread thesis that Americans and Europeans aregrowing apart.

Most Americans see the regime of SaddamHussein as a major threat to regional and inter-national security that must be thwarted, even ifthat means threatening or even using militaryforce. Saddam Hussein is a brutal dictator whohas ordered the invasion of several of his neigh-bours, killed thousands of Kurds and Iranianswith poison gas, turned his own country into animpoverished police state and demonstrated aninsatiable appetite for weapons of mass destruc-tion. He funds Palestinian terrorists who attackIsraeli civilians, tortures dissidents, and tries todisrupt world oil supplies. He is also almost cer-tainly still trying to build nuclear weapons, andhas been free of interference by UN weapons ins-pectors for nearly four years. While there may beno proof that Hussein has ties to the al-Qaedaterrorist organisation or was involved in the 11September terrorist attacks, those attacksclearly demonstrated the kind of damage thatcould result if Iraq were to provide terroristswith biological or nuclear weapons. If Saddamhad nuclear weapons himself, he could seek todominate the entire Middle East, and the UnitedStates might in those circumstances be deterredfrom trying to stop him. These are the reasonswhy the US Congress overwhelmingly suppor-

ted a resolution authorising President Bush touse force in Iraq if he considers it necessary (themost expansive such resolution since before theVietnam War), and why a majority of Americanssupport sending US combat forces to the regionto do the job.1

Europeans do not deny that the Iraqi regimeis a threat to the region or to the Iraqi people.They question, however, whether that threat isso pressing that the international communityshould run the risk of invading an Arab countryin the heart of the Middle East. In contrast to theconfidence of many Americans that using forceto overthrow Saddam Hussein would be relati-vely easy and quick, Europeans fear that theinvaders would inflict heavy casualties on theIraqi civilian population, provoke Iraq’s use ofweapons of mass destruction (WMD) againstinvading forces or neighbouring countries, orbecome bogged down in urban combat. Any ofthese scenarios would, in this view, have a disas-trous effect on the attitudes of Muslim popula-tions around the world, including the very largeones within Europe itself. Europeans also haveserious concerns that a preventive war not expli-citly authorised by the UN Security Councilwould sap the authority of the UN, undermineinternational law, and set a precedent for theunilateral use of force for other states in otherregions, such as India, Israel, Pakistan or Russia.Perhaps most important, Europeans — whohave their own histories of long and not alwayshappy involvement in the Middle East — feelthey know the region well and are dubious thateven the powerful Americans can impose demo-cracy and stability on a country that has neverhad much of either. These are the reasons why

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1 According to Gallup polls, since June 2002 the percentage of Americans supporting an invasion of Iraq has ranged from about 53-61 percent, with those opposed ranging from 31-41 per cent. See ‘Top Ten Findings About Public Opinion and Iraq’, Poll Analyses, 8 October 2002(www.gallup.com/poll/releases/pr021008.asp?Version=p). See also note 29.

2 Much is made of the different positions of main European governments, and it is true that Britain has expressed strong support for theUnited States, Germany is strongly opposed to war, and France is manoeuvring a careful course between the two. But it is also true thatthese different governmental stands operate within a broad European consensus — almost all Europeans would prefer to avoid war, wantto see UN approval for any military action, and share the goal of Iraqi disarmament rather than regime change. For European oppositionto war, see the polls cited in Tanya Willmer, ‘European say no to war on Iraq’, AFP, 2 October 2002; ‘Polls show Europe divided over Iraq’,BBC News, 1 October 2002, www.bbc.co.uk; Roland Eggleston, ‘Germany: Schroeder Reiterates Berlin’s Opposition to War on Iraq’, RadioFree Europe, 12 August 2002, www.rferl.org; and the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations and the German Marshall Fund of the UnitedStates, Worldviews 2002: Comparing American and European Public Opinion on Foreign Policy (Washington: October 2002), pp. 9-10. The GMF pollalso showed that 86 per cent of Americans but only 57 per cent of Europeans believed Iraq’s development of nuclear weapons was an‘extremely important threat’.3 In August 2002, Cheney argued that ‘A return of inspectors would provide no assurance whatsoever of [Saddam’s] compliance with UNresolutions. On the contrary, there is a great danger that it would provide false comfort that Saddam was somehow back in his box.’ SeeCheney’s 26 August speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, excerpted as ‘In Cheney’s Words: The Administration Case for Removing SaddamHussein’, New York Times, 27 August 2002. A few weeks later Rumsfeld similarly questioned whether inspections could ever contain Iraq’spursuit of WMD. See his testimony to the Hearing of the House Armed Services Committee, 18 September 2002.4 See, for example, ‘President Bush Outlines Iraqi Threat’, Remarks by the President on Iraq, Cincinnati Museum Center, Cincinnati, OH,White House Press Release, 7 October 2002.5 Powell has said that if Iraq were fully disarmed ‘Then in effect you have a different kind of regime no matter who’s in Baghdad’. See ‘Powell:Disarmament, Not Hussein’s Removal, Is Top U.S. Priority on Iraq’, The Washington Post, 20 October 2002. For Bush, see his comment inthe Cincinnati speech cited above that ‘Taking these steps [i.e., fulfilling the UN resolutions] would also change the nature of the Iraqi regimeitself.’6 For a good assessment of the sometimes contradictory explanations of the Bush administration’s main goals in Iraq, see Anthony Lewis,‘Bush and Iraq’, New York Review of Books, vol. XLIX, no. 17, 7 November 2002, pp. 4-6.

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majorities in European populations oppose war,and why even those European governments thatsupport the threat of force to bring about disar-mament do not support the objective of regimechange.2

Given all these differences, finding commonground between American and European viewswill not be easy. But it should not be impossibleeither. By going to the United Nations on 12September 2002 to demand the fulfilment ofUN Security Council resolutions, PresidentBush implicitly recognised the importance theUnited States attaches to winning allied sup-port and legitimacy for an operation againstIraq. He also, at least in theory, held out theprospect that if Iraq demonstrably gave up itsWMD programmes and stockpiles, the UnitedStates might forgo, at least for the time being, aninvasion of that country to bring about regimechange. While senior American officials inclu-ding Vice-President Richard Cheney and Secre-tary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld have showngreat scepticism that weapons inspectionscould ever provide enough assurance of Iraqidisarmament to make an invasion unnecessary,the President himself has never taken this line.3Indeed, Bush’s frequent assertions that ‘Sad-dam Hussein must disarm’ (as opposed to ‘must

be removed’) suggest that the non-negotiableUS demand is disarmament, not regimechange.4 Both Bush and Secretary of State ColinPowell have even put forward the notion that anIraqi regime under Saddam Hussein that didrespect UN resolutions and disarm would initself be a form of ‘regime change’.5 Thus, whileit is possible that Bush intends to overthrowSaddam Hussein this winter no matter whathappens on the disarmament front, it is alsopossible — indeed probable — that if Iraq genui-nely does begin a serious disarmament processthe United States would put off plans to attack.6

Given all the American talk about the needfor regime change, Europeans are understanda-bly suspicious that the United States will seek totake advantage of the slightest sign of Iraqi non-compliance with weapons inspectors as a pre-text for using force. But they should also unders-tand that the outcome of the US debate betweenthose who demand regime change and thosewho would settle for disarmament will be deter-mined not only by the degree of Iraqi com-pliance but also by European actions them-selves. The more Europeans are prepared to sup-port a tough weapons inspections regime andthe more prepared they are to credibly threatenforce to implement it, the harder it will be for the

Iraq: the transatlantic debate

United States to walk away from the disarma-ment process and act alone. Put differently, themore the Europeans resist tough disarmamentmeasures and threats, the easier it will be forhawks in the US administration to argue thatweapons inspections cannot be trusted, that fin-ding serious allies is a lost cause, and that theUnited States should, if necessary, unilaterallyuse force to eliminate Saddam Hussein.

The main argument of this paper is thatEuropeans and Americans have a mutual inter-est in joining together to demand, under thethreat of an invasion that would change theBaghdad regime, Iraq’s full compliance with UNSecurity Council resolutions calling for an endto its WMD programmes. If Iraq failed to com-ply with a new UNSC resolution reiteratingthese demands and setting forth a new verifica-tion regime, the United States and Europewould together overthrow Saddam Hussein andundertake a major reconstruction and peace-keeping effort in Iraq. If, on the other hand, Sad-dam did give up his WMD under the credible

threat of military force, the United States wouldforgo plans for invading Iraq so long as Baghdadcomplied with existing and new UNSC resolu-tions. Neither Americans who are determined tochange the Iraqi regime nor Europeans resolu-tely opposed to war would be entirely satisfiedwith such an approach — the former because itmight mean deferring regime change and thelatter because it implied a readiness to go to war.But it would be a far better course than either ofthe main alternatives: a potentially very costlyUS invasion of Iraq (even more costly if the Uni-ted States had to bear responsibility for it alone)or having to live with a nuclear-armed SaddamHussein.

The next two sections of this paper providecontext for the US-Europe discussion by loo-king at the cases for and against war. Subse-quent sections seek to explain why the UnitedStates and Europe tend to disagree on Iraq; whythe United States needs European allies; andhow the United States and Europe might pursuea common approach.

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Introduction

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The case for war

Many Europeans who are critics of regimechange profess to be baffled at the Bush

administration’s strategy. They question whythere is an imperative to deal with it now, andhypothesise that the case for war is primarilyabout ‘unfinished business’ from the adminis-tration of the current president’s father, or apolitical diversion from economic difficulties.In fact, however, while the costs and risks of awar on Iraq should not be underestimated, thereis a serious case for using force to disarm Iraq,even if that means regime change.

2.1 Nuclear weapons could leadSaddam to risk aggressionagainst his neighbours and seekto dominate the Middle East

The central case for action in Iraq is that, ifnothing is done, Saddam Hussein will even-tually acquire nuclear weapons, and that suchan outcome is so dangerous that it is worthusing force now to prevent it. The argument isnot that Saddam is so aggressive or crazy that hewould undertake an unprovoked nuclear attackon the United States. Rather, it is that nuclearweapons would provide Saddam the means tofulfil his long-standing — and so far thwarted —ambitions to dominate the Arab world. Whileopponents of regime change argue that evenSaddam could be deterred from invading hisneighbours by American conventional and

nuclear power (much as the United States deter-red the Soviet Union), it is not clear that Saddamwould believe American threats and shy awayfrom testing them. If Iraq did have a nucleararsenal and launched an invasion of Kuwait, Jor-dan or even Iran, would Washington reallyoppose it if faced with a credible threat ofnuclear retaliation against deployed US forces,Saudi oilfields and Tel-Aviv? It should beremembered that, after Iraq’s 1991 invasion ofKuwait forty-seven US senators did not believe itwas worth risking American lives to eject Iraq,and that was in the absence of Iraqi nuclear wea-pons. Even if this time it might be different, Sad-dam might not know this, and his miscalcula-tions could prove horribly costly.7 Finally, ifSaddam is allowed to develop nuclear weapons,one can be certain that Iran would rapidly acce-lerate its own nuclear programme, potentiallysetting off a very dangerous cascade of overtnuclear proliferation throughout the region.

2.2 The risk of WMD fallinginto the hands of terrorists

A second danger, if nothing is done to stop Sad-dam Hussein’s continued development ofWMD, is that some of these weapons might betransferred to Islamic terrorists — or used by theregime itself for terrorist actions against theUnited States. Contrary to the arguments ofsome proponents of war (and often the Admi-nistration itself), Saddam Hussein is highly

7 For a good statement of the risks of relying on deterrence, see Kenneth M. Pollack, The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq (NewYork: Random House, 2002). For a cautionary tale of what the 1990-91 Gulf war might have looked like if Saddam had had nuclear weaponsat the time, see Barry Posen, ‘U.S. Security Policy in a Nuclear-Armed World (Or: What if Iraq Had Had Nuclear Weapons?)’, Security Studies,Summer 1997, pp. 1-31.

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unlikely to transfer WMD to Islamic radicalswho are as much his enemy as ours.8 Yet that ishardly a reason to be complacent about thepotential that at least some of the biologicalweaponry that Iraq is likely to possess could endup in the hands of a terrorist group like al-Qaeda. As the anthrax attacks on Washington,D.C. and other American cities in September-October 2001 demonstrated, even a very smallamount of one of these substances can poten-tially be lethal and severely disrupt a modernsociety. We know that al-Qaeda has shown agreat interest in procuring chemical, biological,nuclear and radiological weaponry in the past,and also that they have the resources to pur-chase it — from a place like Iraq (whether fromthe regime itself or individuals within it).9 Evenbeyond the potential transfer to other terroristgroups, Saddam himself has shown that he iscapable of the ruthlessness and desire for ven-geance that could lead him to conduct a biologi-cal attack on the United States — especially if hethought he could get away with it (as the perpe-trator of the East Coast anthrax attacks has sofar).

2.3 Maintaining an effectiveinspections regime maybe impossible

The threats posed by Saddam Hussein’s regimewould clearly be significantly diminished ifthere were a credible way to ensure that he didnot possess WMD — and particularly nuclearweapons. But it is difficult to be confident aboutthat, at least in the absence of an extremely rigo-rous inspection regime. Iraq is a big country —roughly the size of Texas or Germany — in which

it would be fairly easy to hide WMD facilities.This is particularly true for biological agents,which are not difficult to preserve once produ-ced and can be manufactured in relatively smallor mobile laboratories. Thus there is a signifi-cant risk that, even if he agrees to inspectionsand turns over some of his prohibited weaponry,Saddam Hussein could successfully hide signifi-cant enough amounts of it to pose a continuingdanger. That danger would become even greaterif Saddam’s apparent cooperation with UN ins-pectors led to the lifting of sanctions, leaving theregime in control of oil revenues that could beused by it to pursue its WMD programmes. Evenshort of that, however, it should be recognisedthat sanctions have become so porous that theregime is already earning some $3 billion peryear from illicit oil sales, and managing toimport significant amounts of industrial goodsacross largely unmonitored borders with Iran,Jordan, Syria and Turkey.10 Those who argueagainst regime change thus somehow need todemonstrate that some combination of wea-pons inspections and reinforced sanctions caneffectively prevent Saddam from developing hisWMD programmes over the long term.

2.4 The costs of the status quo

A further case for regime change is that the sta-tus quo — Saddam’s vicious rule, sanctions onIraq, humanitarian suffering, threats to Iraq’sneighbours, the need for troops in Saudi Arabia,the no-fly zones, Saddam’s support for Palesti-nian terrorists and periodic disruption of oilmarkets — itself poses dangers for the region andthe West. Those who (rightly) argue that aninvasion could provoke instability in the regionoften fail to acknowledge that Saddam’s rule —

8 For a good case that Saddam is unlikely to cooperate with Islamic terrorists, see Daniel Benjamin, ‘Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda arenot Allies’, New York Times, 30 September 2002. See also Pollack, The Threatening Storm, pp. 178-80.9 See Judith Miller, ‘Lab Suggests Qaeda Planned to Build Arms, Officials Say’, New York Times, 14 September 2002.10 See Martin Indyk, ‘Don’t Ignore the Sanctions’, Saban Center for Middle East Policy, Iraq Memo no. 2; and Pollack, The Threatening Storm,especially pp. 211-31.

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The case for war

11 For a good recent discussion, see ‘Special report: Iraq, Israel and the UN’, The Economist, 12 October 2002.

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which has led to an invasion of and eight years ofwar against Iran, an invasion of Kuwait and theGulf war, the use of missiles against severalneighbours, the use of chemical weaponsagainst Kurds and Iranians, support for terro-rists, and repression of Kurds, Shia and otheropponents in Iraq — has hardly been a source ofstability. So long as Saddam is in power, moreo-ver, sanctions will have to be left in place (unlessone wants to run the risk of trying to deter anIraq that has access to tens of billions of dollarsof oil revenues each year) and US troops willhave to remain deployed in the region, includingin Saudi Arabia. Both of these factors have beensources of the resentment that has fuelled Isla-mic terrorism against the West. An invasion ofIraq might or might not lead to a more stablesituation, but it should be acknowledged thatnot doing anything would leave a very unstableand even dangerous situation in place.

2.5 Upholding international lawand the authority of theSecurity Council

Proponents of regime change might not alwaysbe sincere when they evoke international lawand the authority of the Security Council asmotivations for the need to act in Iraq, but thatdoes not mean that such justifications are false.For the past 11 years, the Saddam regime hasflouted the authority of the United Nations,defying some 16 Security Council resolutions,15 of which were passed under Chapter VII ofthe UN Charter. In this sense, Bush’s 12 Septem-ber challenge to the Security Council — act toenforce past resolutions or go the way of theLeague of Nations — is not far off the mark. IfIraq is allowed to get away with its refusal toabide by its own commitments and the Security

Council’s resolutions — resolutions passed onlyafter Iraq invaded Kuwait — it will be difficult toexpect enforcement of other resolutions or theimplementation of other WMD non-prolifera-tion regimes.

Europeans often challenge this argument byclaiming an American ‘double standard’ thatallows Israel, but not Iraq, to get away with viola-ting UNSC resolutions, but the situations arenot analogous. Whereas the Security Councilacted under Chapter VII of the Charter to orderIraq to (among other things) give up its WMDafter it invaded Kuwait, all Security Councilresolutions pertaining to Israel have been pas-sed under Chapter VI, which requires negotia-tions among the concerned parties. In the caseswhere Israel’s adversaries — Egypt and Jordan —were willing to negotiate land for peace, peacetreaties resulted, and Israeli governments havesought to negotiate withdrawals from other ter-ritories to the ‘secure and recognised bounda-ries’ called for by the UN. During the 1990s,Israel withdrew unilaterally from all of Lebanonand offered to withdraw from more than 95 percent of both the Golan Heights and the WestBank and Gaza. Thus, whatever one thinks ofIsrael’s policy, it does not represent the sort ofdefiance of international law and the authorityof the UN Security Council that Iraq’s does, andeven if it did that would hardly be a reason not toinsist on respect for the UN’s authority in thecase of Iraq. 11

2.6 Pressure to disarm

Finally, even if one believes that actually usingforce in Iraq would have highly negative effects— some of which are discussed below — it mustbe admitted that only the credible threat of mili-tary force has any chance of getting Saddam toabide by his disarmament commitments. For

Iraq: the transatlantic debate

months during the course of 2002, as the debateover Iraq proceeded, European leaders expressedtheir ‘insistence’ that Saddam must disarm, andcalled for the use of ‘maximum pressure’ on himto do so. However, in the absence of a crediblethreat of military force — indeed, a threat notonly to use limited force but actually to elimi-nate Saddam and his entire regime — the pros-pect of that pressure having any real effect wasalmost nil. It was only when the threat of forcebecame credible — in the form of a direct war-

ning from the President of the United Statesbacked by advisers who seemed determined toact and actual military deployments in theregion — that Saddam even began goingthrough the motions of accepting a new inspec-tions regime. Clearly, if the goal is really toattempt to win Iraq’s WMD disarmament, theprospect of regime change must remain credible— which will only be the case if the internationalcommunity, and in particular the United States,is willing to threaten force.

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The case for war

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The case against war

I f Europeans are sceptical about Americanarguments for war, many Americans are frus-

trated with what they see as Europe’s apparentrefusal to take seriously the threats posed bySaddam Hussein’s regime. They see Europe asoverly focused on its internal challenges (enlar-gement, the euro and the European Conven-tion) and unwilling to accept that some interna-tional problems need to be dealt with by force.12

In fact, however, one need not be disposedtoward appeasement or instinctively against theuse of force in international relations to come tothe conclusion that attacking Iraq is a bad idea.In fact, just as there is a good case that Saddamshould be removed even at a high cost, there aregood arguments against doing just that — argu-ments that are shared by many Americans them-selves.

3.1 The potential military risksand costs are too high

Many proponents of regime change argue thatthe military part of the operation will be relati-vely easy, because Iraqi armed forces are in poor

shape and unlikely to be loyal to Saddam.13

Both of those points may well be true — the firstone certainly is — but that does not necessarilymean that an invasion of Iraq will be easy or low-cost. Regime change against Saddam will not bea repeat of the Gulf war, when the battles werefought in the open desert and the objective waslimited to driving the Iraqi army out of Kuwait.This time, Saddam’s very existence will be atstake, and his only hope for survival may well beto inflict as many casualties as possible on inva-ding forces — and making those forces cause asmany civilian casualties as possible — as he can.This probably means hunkering down in centralIraqi cities like Baghdad and Tikrit, and forcingthe invading forces into urban combat — oralternatively into extended air campaigns thatwould take a very high civilian toll.14 If Sad-dam’s élite forces — mainly the RepublicanGuard and Special Republican Guard — refuseto fight, urban combat might well be avoided,but if they do fight the casualties could be in thethousands.15 The other wild card, of course, isWMD. Knowing his neck was on the line thistime, Saddam might not refrain fromemploying the chemical and biological wea-ponry he almost certainly has in his arsenal.While deployed American forces in protective

12 For a good example, see Robert Kagan, ‘Power and Weakness’, Policy Review, June/July 2002.13 See, for example, Ken Adelman, ‘Cakewalk In Iraq’, The Washington Post, 13 February 2002; Patrick Clawson, ‘Why Saddam is Ripe for aFall’, The Washington Post, 1 January 2002; Richard Perle, ‘Should Iraq Be Next?’, speech to the Foreign Policy Research Institute, distributedby Copley News Service, 17 December 2001; James M. Woolsey, ‘Should the United States Go to War with Iraq?’, CATO Institute Forum,Washington, DC, 13 December 2001; and the discussion in Michael Dobbs, ‘Old Strategy on Iraq Sparks New Debate: Backers Say PlanProven in Afghanistan’, The Washington Post, 27 December 2001.14 See, for example, Barry Posen, ‘Foreseeing a Bloody Siege in Baghdad’, New York Times, 13 October 2002; Michael Quinlan, ‘There arealternatives to war on Iraq’, Financial Times, 24 September 2002; Philip H. Gordon and Michael O’Hanlon, ‘A Tougher Target’, The WashingtonPost, 26 December 2001; Philip H. Gordon and Michael O’Hanlon, ‘Is Fighting Iraq Worth the Risks?’, New York Times, 25 July 2002; DanielByman, ‘Get Ready for a Nasty War in Iraq’, International Herald Tribune, 11 March 2002; and Eric Schmitt and Thom Shanker, ‘U.S. RefinesPlans for War in Cities’, New York Times, 22 October 2002. 15 For estimates of possible casualties in such a campaign, see Michael O’Hanlon, ‘Estimating Casualties in a War to overthrow Saddam’,Orbis, Winter 2003, pp. 1-19; and O’Hanlon, ‘Overthrowing Saddam: Counting the Costs and Casualties’, Brookings Saban Center IraqMemo no. 1, 9 October 2002.

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The case against war

16 According to former UN weapons inspector Charles Duelfer, Saddam Hussein had predelegated orders to Iraqi forces to launch chemicaland biological warheads (including aflatoxin, anthrax and nerve agent) on missiles and bombs if the allied coalition had marched onBaghdad, which would of course be the case this time around. See Duelfer’s testimony, ‘Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq’, Testimonybefore the Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities, Armed Services Committee of the United States Senate, 27 February 2002;as well as Amatzia Baram, ‘An Analysis of Iraq’s WMD Strategy’, Nonproliferation Review, Summer 2001, pp. 34-5; and the discussion in Pollack,The Threatening Storm, p. 151.17 See Daniel Benjamin, ‘In the Fog of War, A Greater Threat’, The Washington Post, 31 October 2002.18 For a good review, see International Crisis Group, ‘Iraq Backgrounder: What Lies Beneath’, 1 October 2002 (ICG Middle East Reportno. 6, Amman/Brussels); and Pierre-Jean Luizard, La Question Irakienne (Paris: Fayard, October 2002).19 For the cost estimates, see Congressional Budget Office, ‘Estimated Costs of a Potential Conflict with Iraq’, (Washington, DC: CBO,September 2002); O’Hanlon, ‘Overthrowing Saddam’, Iraq Memo no. 1; and Michael O’Hanlon, ‘The Price of Stability’, New York Times,22 October 2002. See also the discussion of options in Patrick Clawson (ed.), How to Build a New Iraq after Saddam (Washington, DC:Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 2002).

suits might well be able to deal with such contin-gencies on the battlefield, biological or chemicalattacks on other forces in the theatre, Israelicities or the United States through forward-deployed terrorists could take many morelives.16 In addition (and perversely), attackingIraq to prevent Iraqi WMD from falling into thehands of Islamic terrorists could actuallyincrease that very risk, by breaking up Saddam’ssystem of control and making it impossible tokeep track of very small but highly lethalamounts of biological agents or mobile labora-tories.17

3.2 The ‘day after’ problem

Another strong argument against invading Iraqis that it would be difficult to put a stable regimein place once Saddam Hussein was removed.Since it was somewhat arbitrarily put togetheras a state out of three Ottoman provinces in1921, Iraq has never been democratic but ins-tead always subjected to the repressive rule of amonarch or minority Sunni military dictator.Under Saddam Hussein, all civil society has beencrushed, and enormous resentment has built upamong repressed ethnic groups, be they Kurds,Shia, Turkomans or others.18 Thus, even if andwhen Saddam is successfully removed, the inter-national community will be faced with the enor-mous and costly challenge of imposing someform of stable regime on the country. Oneoption, following the model used recently by the

United States in Afghanistan, would be to ins-tall some form of new government — led byeither Iraqi exiles who have been living in theWest or a domestic-based coalition — and with-draw from Iraq as quickly as possible so as toavoid any impression of imperialism. The risk,however, is that such a government would haveno way to prevent local uprisings, reprisalsagainst those who had assisted the minoritySunni rule or, most importantly, violentstruggles over resources such as are almost cer-tain to take place in oil-rich regions like Kirkuk— claimed by Arabs, Kurds and Turkomansalike. Without a massive American or interna-tional military presence, the risk of civil war —including meddling by neighbours such as Iran,Syria and Turkey — is great. The alternative tothe Afghan model, however, is equally perilousand certainly much more costly: a massive Wes-tern occupation force of tens of thousands ofsoldiers, who might have to remain in Iraq foryears. Such an occupation would cost tens of bil-lions of dollars per year and might well lead to abacklash against the West, including in the formof greater support for anti-American terro-rism.19

3.3 Undermining the war onterrorism

Many critics of war on Iraq — not only in Europebut in the United States as well — worry that itwill prove a distraction from what should be the

14

Iraq: the transatlantic debate

top national security priority: the war on terro-rism. If the invasion of Iraq goes well — Sad-dam’s forces are quickly defeated, the Iraqipeople visibly liberated and some form of stablegovernment quickly put in place — war on Iraqwill arguably have made a major contribution tothe war on terrorism rather than the opposite. Ifthings go less well, however, there is a significantrisk that invading Iraq will not only be a distrac-tion but could actually make things worse.These scenarios would include a difficult mili-tary campaign that ends up with weeks of US-led bombing of Arab civilians, broadcast inces-santly throughout the Arab world; an Israeliincursion into the West Bank under cover of theIraq war leading to high Palestinian casualties;or a long and potentially violent occupation ofIraq that fuels resentment of the West in generaland the United States in particular. InvadingIraq could also divert key resources — the besttrained special forces; intelligence assets inclu-ding satellites, operatives, and analysts; and sim-ply the time and political capital of top officials— away from the war on terrorism.20 This mightbe less true for actual military forces themselves— though even US forces could find themselvesstretched thin if they are occupying Iraq, facingcontinued operations in Afghanistan and aug-menting forces in South Korea to deal with thegrowing threat from the north.

3.4 Unilateral invasion wouldset a dangerous precedent

Another concern often expressed by opponentsof war on Iraq, particularly European ones, isthat it would be illegal, unless explicitly authori-sed by the United Nations Security Council.Even worse, a unilateral decision by the UnitedStates to overthrow the Baghdad regime wouldset a terrible precedent that other states with lesslaudable motives might emulate. If the UnitedStates can take it upon itself to decide whichstates threaten it and to act to remove theirgovernments, they argue, who is to stop China,India, Israel, Russia or anyone else from doingthe same? And might the United States not fol-low up on successful regime change in Iraq bythen launching a similar attack on other poten-tially hostile regimes — say, in Iran or NorthKorea — leading those regimes to take counter-measures such as accelerated development ofnuclear weapons or efforts to undermine USpower? Unilateral American action might there-fore be a step forward in the short term but inthe long run it could destroy a critical pillar oforder in the international system, with conse-quences that would be hard to control.21

20 On the military resources, see Michael O’Hanlon, ‘War Against Saddam’s Regime: Winnable but No Cakewalk’, Testimony before theHouse Armed Services Committee, 2 October 2002. For the case that success in Afghanistan requires continued US attention and resources,see James Dobbins, ‘Afghanistan’s Faltering Reconstruction’, New York Times, 12 September 2002.21 For some of the many arguments along these lines, see Anatol Lieven, ‘The Push for War’, London Review of Books, 3 October 2002; MichaelHoward ‘What Friends are For’, The National Interest, Fall 2002, pp. 8-11; and Pierre Hassner, ‘Definitions, Doctrines and Divergences’, TheNational Interest, Fall 2002, pp. 30-4.

15

4

The sources of US-European disagreement

A s already noted, it is a caricature to suggestthat all Europeans are against a war in Iraq

and all Americans are for one. In fact, someEuropeans — Tony Blair or Silvio Berlusconi, forexample — are sympathetic to the Bush adminis-tration’s arguments for using or threateningforce in Iraq, and even more Americans appa-rently including some leading figures in theBush administration — are sympathetic to Euro-pean arguments against war. Still, there are cleardifferences, both between American and Euro-pean public opinions and between the Bushadministration and most European govern-ments. In the transatlantic dialogue that hasbeen taking place for at least the past year, Ame-ricans tend to focus on the first set of argumentspresented above, and Europeans tend to focuson the second. Why?

The most immediate cause of the divergencein viewpoints on Iraq may be that the 11 Sep-tember terrorist attacks took place not inEurope but in the United States, where they hada huge psychological impact on a populationthat had long held and cherished a notion of ter-ritorial invulnerability. Again, this is not to sug-gest that Iraq was behind those attacks(although it is worth noting that many Ameri-cans believe that Iraq had something to do withthem),22 but rather to note the psychologicallink between the two. Before 11 September, eventhe Bush administration, replete with long-timeIraq hawks, was having trouble making the casefor an active policy of regime change, and the

Iraq ‘policy review’ that the Administration hadlaunched upon coming into office was boggeddown in bureaucratic wrangling. After 11 Sep-tember and the anthrax attacks that followed it— seen as a demonstration of what WMD in thewrong hands can do — the balance of public opi-nion tipped in favour of acting against Iraq, andthe balance between hawks and doves within theAdministration tipped with it. Europeansmight not agree with the logic of linking 11 Sep-tember and Iraq, but they should at leastunderstand that such a link exists in many Ame-rican minds, and that it is a reality with whichUS politicians must deal.

These proximate factors only exacerbatedsome more long-standing differences in Ameri-can and European perceptions and strategic cul-ture that had already done much to split the twosides on Iraq.23 Due to their long history of rela-tive invulnerability (a product of friendly neigh-bours and protective oceans) and unpreceden-ted relative power in the world, Americans havedeveloped a much lower tolerance for vulnerabi-lity than their European counterparts. This hasbeen true for decades — it was evident in the ColdWar debates of the 1970s and 1980s, forexample, as Americans increasingly soughtalternatives to détente and mutually assurednuclear destruction with the Soviet Union whileEuropeans were reconciled to living with both —and has only grown, along with Americanpower, in more recent years. During the 1990s,America’s determination to take forceful action

22 According to an August 2002 Gallup poll, 53 per cent of Americans said they believed ‘Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the11 September attacks’ and 34 per cent thought not (13 per cent had no opinion). In that same poll, 86 per cent said they thought Saddamwas involved more generally in supporting terrorist groups that have plans to attack the United States. See ‘Conflict with Iraq: Iraq’s PossibleLinks to Terrorists’, Americans and the World, Public Opinion on International Affairs, Program on International Policy Attitudes,www.americans-world.org.23 Some of these are discussed in Philip H. Gordon, The Transatlantic Allies and the Middle East (London: IISS, 1998); Kagan, ‘Power andWeakness’; and Gordon, ‘Bridging the Atlantic Divide’, Foreign Affairs (forthcoming, January/February 2003).

16

Iraq: the transatlantic debate

against ‘rogue states’ such as Iran and Iraq, andwillingness to spend billions of dollars in aneffort to protect Americans from the unlikelyevent of a ballistic missile attack on US territory,were further examples of a low threshold forliving with vulnerabilities and a readiness toexpend significant resources to deal with them.These factors are relevant today, as Americansinsist on removing the threat from Iraq — andput their faith in their technology and militaryprowess to do it — whereas Europeans seemmuch more comfortable with accepting, contai-ning and trying to deter that threat.

It is also relevant that both Americans andEuropeans believe that a nuclear, biological orchemical threat from Iraq would primarily be anAmerican problem, not a European one. If Iraqwere to develop nuclear weapons and decide tolaunch an attack on Jordan, Kuwait or SaudiArabia, US forces would be expected to take thelead in containing that threat, which may helpexplain why Americans are so determined tostop Saddam before he acquires such weapons.Similarly, for all the talk of ‘the West’ being thetarget of Islamist terrorism — and it is certainlytrue that Europeans have been targets in thepast and could be targets in the future — the Uni-ted States is probably target number one. It isthe symbol of Western ‘repression’ of the Islamicworld, the country with troops in Saudi Arabiaand elsewhere in the region, the lead actor inmaintaining sanctions and no-fly zones in Iraq,the country that bombed Afghanistan, andIsrael’s most resolute ally. Unless and untilEurope experiences its own 11 September, Euro-peans will probably remain less worried thanAmericans about even the remote possibilitythat WMD developed in Iraq might find theirway into the wrong hands.

Diverging American and European historicalperspectives also influence the debate. Ameri-cans imbued with the experience of creating

democracy in Japan and Germany after theSecond World War cling — perhaps naively — tothe belief that if one can just get rid of the cur-rent Iraqi dictator, democracy and freedom willflourish in the region.24 European countries —particularly France and the United Kingdom —have a somewhat different historical perspec-tive. Both know what it is like trying to ruleforeign societies from a distance and trying toset up stable structures so that they can governthemselves. France, for example, lost tens ofthousands of soldiers while trying to rule Indo-china from 1945-54 and tens of thousands morein Algeria from 1954-62 (several times thatmany locals also died in the process). AfterFrench forces left, neither place was exactlystable or at peace. Britain’s colonial experiencewas less bloody, but the departure from Indiaand a number of places in the Middle East —including Iraq — hardly left the British withmore optimism that outsiders can imposedemocracy or stability in places that have no his-tory of either. Germany’s historical baggage isdifferent, but no less relevant — Germans lear-ned in the twentieth century that war is bad andaggressive war is worse — and few in that countrybelieve military intervention in Iraq will be apositive contribution to peace. This Europeanhistorical pessimism (or realism, depending onone’s perspective), contrasts significantly withAmericans historical ‘can-do’ optimism andhelps explain why some Americans believe thatinvading Iraq would be a first step toward crea-ting a new and better Middle East.25

Finally, no one should ignore the two sides’domestic politics, both in terms of how theyinfluence leaders and how they shape the publicdebate. In Europe, leaders must be conscious ofthe restiveness among their poorly integratedand very large Muslim populations (including4-6 million in France, over 3 million in Germany,and 1.5 million in Britain), and worried that an

24 Robert Kagan and William Kristol, to take just one example, argue that ‘A devastating knockout blow against Saddam Hussein, followedby an American-sponsored effort to rebuild Iraq and put it on a path toward democratic governance, would have a seismic impact on theArab world—for the better.’ See Robert Kagan and William Kristol, ‘What to do about Iraq’, The Weekly Standard, 21 January 2002. 25 For a good example of such American thinking, see Ronald D. Asmus and Kenneth M. Pollack, ‘The New Transatlantic Project’, PolicyReview, October/November 2002.

17

The sources of US-European disagreement

American invasion of the Arab heartland couldprovoke unrest. High civilian casualties or alengthy and difficult Western occupation ofIraq could radicalise Muslim populations thathave already proven themselves potential bree-ding grounds for al-Qaeda. In late 2001 andearly 2002, clashes between Israelis and Palesti-nians spilled over into Europe itself, and inFrance and Belgium led to clashes between theirMuslim and Jewish populations, as well as actsof anti-Semitic violence and vandalism. In the

United States domestic politics push in theopposite direction. Influential Jewish and otherpro-Israel groups are worried about the threatSaddam Hussein poses to Israel, and tend to beon the side of action, even if that means usingforce to topple Saddam Hussein. Whereas Euro-pean leaders will have to worry about maintai-ning political and public support if they actagainst Iraq, American leaders will have to worryabout their support if they fail to do so.

5

18

Does the United States needEuropean allies in Iraq?

A s the Bush administration prepares for pos-sible war, one of the many essential ques-

tions it will need to answer is whether, or at leastto what extent, it should go out of its way to seeksupport from European allies. Some Americansbelieve that Europe has little to offer the UnitedStates militarily, and that Washington shouldthus determine its Iraq policy alone.26 Othersaccept that Europeans might well have animportant role to play in the stabilisation andreconstruction of a post-Saddam Hussein Iraq,but argue that they will play such a role on thebasis of a calculation of their own political andeconomic interests, independently of whetherWashington involves them in the policy-makingprocess or makes important concessions to wintheir support.27

It is true that US leadership on Iraq isessential, and that if the United States acts therewill be strong pressure on Europeans to follow.Indeed, it is almost certainly the case that in theabsence of a credible American threat to actalone most Europeans would not even be enga-ging in the current debate about enforcing UNSecurity Council resolutions.28 Europeansknow that a unilateral American intervention —even if backed by Britain and a few other Euro-pean allies — would be disastrous for Europe: theEuropeans who opposed action would be margi-nalised politically and economically in theregion, the authority of the UN Security Council

and international law would be undermined,transatlantic relations would be severely dama-ged, and the EU’s common foreign and securitypolicy left in a shambles. This pressure willstrongly motivate at least some of them to backan eventual US action, even if they are not enthu-siastic about the course being pursued.

It would be wrong, however, to assume thatall or even most Europeans will back an Ameri-can military intervention in any circumstancessimply out of fear of being left out. Given thewidespread opposition to war among mostEuropean publics (and voters), European lea-ders will have to be able to credibly claim that theUnited States was willing to give diplomacy andweapons inspections one last try, that its deci-sion to go to the UN was not just a ruse to find apredicate for war, and that it had a credible planfor ‘the day after’. It is impossible to say preciselywhere on the spectrum the threshold for likelyEuropean support lies, and for which countries,but the point is that the bandwagoning effectthat American unilateralists count on will notbe automatic or complete.

There are also important differences betweenan operation in which the United States decidesto act alone that a couple of resentful Europeanstates feel obliged to support and a collectiveaction backed by the UN that has genuine sup-port in Europe. Most Americans, in fact, unders-tand this: for all the talk of Washington being

26 See Charles Krauthammer, ‘The Myth of “UN Support” ’, The Washington Post, 4 October 2002; and ‘The Axis of Petulance’, The WashingtonPost, 1 March 2002.27 See Robert Kagan, ‘Iraq: The Day After’, The Washington Post, 21 July 2002; and William Safire, ‘In Material Breach’, New York Times,28 October 2002. 28 As one senior Bush administration official put it, reflecting a widely held American view, ‘You could argue that the best way to get theUN to act decisively is to convince everyone that the president will do the same thing with a resolution, or without one’. Quoted in DavidE. Sanger, ‘Iraq Makes U.N. Seem “Foolish”, Bush Asserts’, New York Times, 29 October 2002.

19

Does the United States need European allies in Iraq?

29 According to a September 2002 Gallup poll, 79 per cent of Americans said they favoured US military action against Iraq ‘if other countriesparticipate’,or ‘if the United Nations support invading Iraq’, but only 38 per cent supported US action ‘if the United States has to invadeIraq alone’ and 37 per cent ‘if the United Nations opposes invading Iraq’. See www.gallup.com/poll/releases/pr021008.asp?Version=p. Theresults of the September 2002 Chicago Council on Foreign Relations/German Marshall Fund poll were similar: whereas a majority ofAmericans supported using US forces to change the regime in Iraq, 65 per cent said they only supported doing so if the operation had ‘UNapproval and the support of allies’. See Worldviews 2002: American Public Opinion and Foreign Policy (Chicago Council on Foreign Relations,Washington: October 2002), p. 27.30 These figures include both EU pledges and EU member state pledges. See ‘The European Union and Afghanistan’, www.eurunion.org,May 2002; and Clay Chandler, ‘$4.5 Billion Pledged for Afghan Renewal; Gathering in Tokyo Stresses Need for “Rapid Disbursement” ’, TheWashington Post, 22 January 2002.

willing to act alone if necessary, opinion polls(and the debate in Congress) show a strong pre-ference for making Iraq a multinational opera-tion with UN and allied support.29 Bush himselfimplicitly recognised this point with his deci-sion to present the case on Iraq to the UN on 12September, rather than simply announcing theAmerican approach, as some inside and outsidethe Administration had counselled.

European allies for the United States on Iraqare important not primarily for what they bringmilitarily, but even that should not be comple-tely dismissed. At a minimum, the United Stateswould need European base and port access andoverflight rights lest it have to stage the opera-tion entirely from the continental United States,aircraft carriers or whatever Middle Easternbases it could find. Beyond bases, a Europeanoffer to provide certain specialised militarycapabilities — special forces for raid operations,in-flight refuelling, forward-deployed targetdesignators for laser-guided bombs, WMDdetection units — might well come in handy toAmerican military planners. Ideally, Europeansmight even offer significant numbers of troops— perhaps even coordinated through NATO —that might be used to seize and stabilise a sectorof Iraqi territory once military action hadbegun. Even if the United States deploys the vastbulk of military assets to the region, it is notimpossible to imagine difficult decisions aboutresource allocation having to be made — say bet-ween preventing a Kurdish-Turkish-Arab clashover Kirkuk, the centre of oil production in nor-thern Iraq, and mounting an all-out assault onBaghdad — that could be alleviated if large num-bers of the best European troops were available.

More important than military assets wouldbe the legitimacy that European backing would

confer on the operation, which would provemost important if unexpected challenges wereto arise, as they almost certainly will. If the initialmilitary operation went better than expected,unilateral American action might be forgottenquickly as others lined up to share in the creditand the spoils. But should it not go so well — ifSaddam, for example, managed to bog Ameri-can forces down in urban combat, provoke mas-sive civilian casualties or successfully use WMDagainst Israel, Jordan or Turkey — the resent-ment against the United States for acting alonewould be deep and long-lasting. A mess in Iraq inthese sorts of circumstances would at least bethe world’s mess — requiring world resources toclean it up — rather than America’s own.

Another advantage of the multilateralapproach is the financial support that could beexpected from European allies for the massivetasks of occupation, peacekeeping, and recons-truction in Iraq. After the first Gulf war, and to alarge degree because the operation had broadinternational support and a mandate from theUnited Nations, the United States was able tocollect over $50 billion from other countrieswhose interests were directly or indirectly atstake. Similarly, after the war in Afghanistan,Washington was able to drum up significantinternational financial support for Afghanreconstruction, with the European Union pled-ging some 600 million Euros for 2002 and 2.3billion Euros over the next four years — approxi-mately 45 per cent of the total amount pled-ged.30 While the Europeans may have their owninterest in trying to keep Iraq stable after a warthis time, European leaders will surely find itmore difficult to ask their publics to makecontributions to an effort that they did not sup-port and were not involved in than they would a

20

Iraq: the transatlantic debate

collective effort authorised by the UN. The sameis true when it comes to material contributionsin the form of the peacekeepers that would benecessary on the ground after the initial conflictwas over. In Afghanistan, 11 NATO countrieswere willing to participate in the InternationalSecurity Assistance Force because they saw theUS effort there as legitimate and appropriate,and the British, the Turks, and soon Germanyand the Netherlands, were willing to take thelead role in commanding that force. After anIraq invasion, some European countries mightwant to be present on the ground to assure theirown interests in the region, but if the stabilitymission turned out to be dangerous — and if itfollowed an invasion that European govern-ments and publics did not support — findingthe troops for such a mission would not be soeasy. A multilateral peacekeeping force — per-haps organised by NATO or at least involvingsignificant numbers of NATO troops — wouldnot only be much cheaper for the United States

to maintain but it would have a better chance ofsucceeding and being accepted by the Iraqisthan a US-led force alone.

Finally, getting support from Europe — andmuch of the rest of the world — will increase thelikelihood that Saddam Hussein would give into rigorous disarmament demands or that Iraqiarmed forces would give up without a fight. Ifthe United States were isolated and clearlyacting in the face of international opinion, Sad-dam and his henchmen might just think thatthey could force Washington to back down ifonly they could inflict enough casualties onAmericans, or get the Americans to kill lots ofcivilians. Saddam would almost certainly bewrong in making this calculation, but it wouldnot be the first time his miscalculations had pro-ved costly. Solid European support behind theAmerican threat of regime change would be thebest way to minimise the chance of that happe-ning.

6

The way ahead

R econciling American and European posi-tions on Iraq will not be easy. Yet it is also

clear that both sides have an interest in a com-mon approach if possible. Europeans know thatif they rule out the use of force and fail to engagein the debate Washington might well launch amilitary operation without them, with all thenegative consequences for Europe and worldorder already discussed. But Americans alsoknow that this scenario is not in their interesteither: stabilising a post-Saddam Iraq will behard enough with the support of the internatio-nal community; no one should wish to bear res-ponsibility for it alone. The fact that France —reluctant as it is to see a war — and the UnitedStates — reluctant as it is to see new constraintsplaced on its ability to threaten one — have beenwilling to engage for weeks and weeks at theSecurity Council on a new resolution is a signthat people on both sides of the Atlantic knowthis.

What would a joint US-European policy onIraq look like? The basic deal that both sideswould have to agree to has been obvious forsome time: Americans will agree to give newlyempowered weapons inspectors a chance to eli-minate Iraq’s WMD capability if Saddam agreesto cooperate with them, and Europeans willagree to support the use of military force tochange the regime in Baghdad if he does not.31

This is, in fact, the implicit deal that has been atthe core of the difficult negotiations over a newSecurity Council resolution in New York: inexchange for Security Council agreement on atoughened inspections regime with tight time-lines to test Iraqi compliance, the United Stateswould at least temporarily forego militaryaction to change the Iraqi regime.

Many on both sides of the Atlantic are ofcourse reluctant to accept such a deal, and it istrue that the implementation phase is likely toprove even more challenging — both with theIraqis and between Americans and Europeans —than the negotiation of the resolution itself. Onthe American side, many (including key figureswithin the Bush administration) argue that ins-pections cannot work. Even with a toughenednew regime, they fear that after a few weeks ormonths of apparent cooperation Iraq willannounce that certain ‘sensitive sites’ are off-limits to inspectors, quibble with the make-upof one of the inspections teams, or claim to beunable to find a handful of weapons scientiststhat UN officials want to interview. They argue— rightly — that it will be difficult to go to warover such apparently minor issues — and thusworry that even engaging in the process in thefirst place might have been a mistake. The inter-national community will tire of the struggle tofully enforce resolutions long before the Iraqiswill (as has always been the pattern in the past),and an opportunity to finally resolve the Iraqissue will have been missed.

Even if Saddam does not interfere with ins-pectors, an alternative but equally dangerousscenario is also plausible: that Iraq will turn oversome WMD but hide much more. Then, after aninitial period, inspectors will have to admit thatthey are not finding anything, and eventuallycalls to lift sanctions will be made — leaving Sad-dam in possession of WMD and tens of billionsof dollars of oil revenues with which to developthem.

To convince the Americans that these all-too-plausible scenarios will not come about, theEuropeans will need to convince them — and

21

31 See Philip H. Gordon and Michael O’Hanlon, ‘Tony Blair has a chance to bridge the gap on Iraq’, International Herald Tribune, 5 April 2002.

32 The Administration’s recent statements that disarmament is Washington’s main goal — along with the willingness to do without an‘automatic trigger’ in the new UN resolution — have arguably gone far in this direction — correcting the suggestions by Cheney andRumsfeld over the summer that sending weapons inspectors back to Iraq might even be worse than doing nothing.

22

Saddam Hussein — that they are serious whenthey say that they support ‘serious conse-quences’ for Iraq if it fails to disarm. This meansbacking not only the threat of force — the onlyhope of winning Iraqi compliance — but also allof the elements necessary to give weapons ins-pections an opportunity to work: insistence on afull declaration of Iraqi WMD programmeswithin a short and defined period of time; unfet-tered and immediate access to all suspected wea-pons sites that UN inspectors want to visit(including ‘presidential palaces’); the ability tointerview Iraqi weapons scientists without thepresence of an Iraqi ‘minder’ and if necessary theability to take them out of the country; full UNcontrol over the make-up of the inspectionsteams; and reinforcement of the sanctionsregime. Already, Germany’s outspoken opposi-tion to the use of force and France’s tough bar-gaining at the UN over the modalities of new ins-pections come perilously close to convincingAmericans that inspections will not be seriousand that the United States must go to war. Withthe debate in Washington finely poised betweenthose willing to give disarmament a chance andthose who call for regime change, Europeansneed to recognise that the more they can do tomake inspections credible the more likely it isthat war will be avoided.

Europeans of course are also reluctant toaccept such a deal. They know that the chancesare high that Saddam will not really cooperatewith inspectors and that he will either blocktheir access to key sites, hide prohibited wea-pons, or both. They also worry that the Bushadministration will seek a pretext for war even ifSaddam does give up some of his WMD pro-grammes. To overcome these doubts, Bushneeds to convince Europeans that the USapproach to the UN is more than a cynical ployto get international backing for a predetermi-ned war.32 The Europeans, in any case, shouldrealise that it is hard to imagine Bush going towar in Iraq while inspectors are operating effec-tively in the country and WMD are being identi-

fied and destroyed. The debates of the past yearhave proven that it is hard to launch a preventivewar — even for an administration as hawkishand determined as the current American one.The United States needs its European allies, theAdministration knows that, and the more stron-gly the Europeans insist on serious, unfetteredinspections the less likely the United States willbe to go to war. In this sense, the more the Euro-peans want to avoid a war in Iraq, the more theyneed to threaten one.

There are no guarantees. But if Saddam Hus-sein can be convinced that a US-led coalitionwith international support and legitimacy ispoised to unseat him, he may well give up hisWMD rather than relinquish his hold on power— or his life. Even if weapons inspectors cannever guarantee that Iraq will be fully disarmed,they can at least ensure that Saddam’s nuclearprogrammes are eliminated, which would dealwith the most important part of the problem.

To be sure, there are more important aspectsof the Iraq issue than whether the Americansand Europeans can agree. If the United Statesfeels sufficiently threatened that it is willing torun the risks of a unilateral intervention toremove Saddam Hussein, it should do so whe-ther it has initial European support or not. AndEuropeans who are convinced that an attack onIraq would create more problems than it wouldsolve are perfectly within their rights to opposesuch a war. Both sides, however, need to reco-gnise that their own actions and decisions willhave a large impact not only on their relationswith each other but on the outcome of the Iraqcase itself. By pursuing a common strategyalong the lines outlined here, Americans andEuropeans would not only significantlyimprove the chances for success in Iraq butwould be launching a joint endeavour thatwould do much to put the transatlantic allianceback on track. If they fail to do so the conse-quences could be severe both for policy on Iraqand for the alliance itself.

Iraq: the transatlantic debate

n°38 Getting there: building strategic mobility into ESDP November 2002Katia Vlachos-Dengler

n°37 From candidate to member state: Poland and the future of the EU September 2002Rafal Trzaskowski

n°36 Optimiser le processus de Barcelone Juillet 2002Dorothée Schmid

n°35 L’ONU au Kosovo : leçons de la première MINUK Mai 2002Eric Chevallier

n°34 Bigger EU, wider CFSP, stronger ESDP? The view from Central Europe April 2002Edited by Antonio Missiroli

n°33 A new European Union policy for Kaliningrad March 2002Sander Huisman

n°32 Managing separatist states: a Eurasian case study November 2001Dov Lynch

n°31 Aspects juridiques de la politique européenne de sécurité et de défense November 2001Lydia Pnevmaticou

n°30 Reconciling the Prince’s Two ‘Arms’. Internal-external security policy coordination in the European Union. September 2001Ferruccio Pastore

n°29 The challenge of Belarus and European responses July 2001Ramunas Davidonis

n°28 Developing the ‘Moral’ arguments: Russian rhetorical strategies July 2001on security post-KosovoCharlotte Wagnsson

n°27 Coherence for European security policy. Debates - cases - assessments May 2001Edited by Antonio Missiroli

n°26 Le MTCR face à la prolifération des missiles Mai 2001Mathieu Grospeaud

n°25 A common European export policy for defence and dual-use items? May 2001Burkard Schmitt

n°24 Realigning neutrality? Irish defence policy and the EU March 2001Daniel Keohane

n°23 Cold war dinosaurs or hi-tech arms providers? The West European land armaments industry at the turn of the millenium February 2001Jan Joel Andersson

n°22 The Nordic dimension in the evolving European security structure and the role of Norway November 2000Bjorn Olav Knutsen

Occasional Papers

All Occasional Paperscan be accessed via the Institute’s website:

www.iss-eu.org