A new Iraqi crisis has crept up on a world preoccupied by other matters, international and domestic. Latest reports indicate there could be a retaliatory attack by US and British forces on Iraq in coming days. This unpreparedness may indeed explain Saddam Hussein's decision last week to stop cooperating with the United Nations Special Commission (Unscom) monitoring the removal of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. Saddam's decision was presumably activated by his perception that President Clinton had been weakened by the Lewinsky affair, and that there was little prospect of UN sanctions against Iraq being lifted. The possibility that the inspectors were getting too close to their target may also have influenced him. A new confrontation would once again raise his profile with his people and in the Middle East region.
Such calculations may be more ill-advised on this occasion than was the case last February when the United Nations Secretary General, Mr Kofi Annan, brokered a deal to head off another military confrontation. Against the background of a threatened use of force, he negotiated a deal which held out the possibility of UN economic sanctions being lifted if the arms inspection terms were complied with. It was a skilful exercise in diplomacy drawing on the reluctance of France, Russia and China to use force, but without sacrificing the principle of inclusive arms inspections in compliance with Security Council resolutions. But it depended crucially on all parties going along with it.
In the meantime, the arms inspection team's work has been frustrated by systematic denial of access to necessary data and sites (although Iraq's complaint about US dominance of the process appeared to be endorsed by revelations that one former officer had been passing information to Israeli intelligence). In late October, the US hardened its stance by demanding that Iraq must comply with all Security Council resolutions before a comprehensive review of economic sanctions could be undertaken. Since this would include accounting for missing Kuwaiti persons and property arising from the Gulf War, Saddam Hussein may well have concluded there was no prospect that sanctions would be lifted soon.
President Clinton has emerged stronger from the congressional elections and, therefore, from the Lewinsky affair than the Iraqi leadership bargained for. He is less likely to be accused of an opportunist use of force. There is clearly a debate going on in his administration as to whether force should be used in retaliation for Iraq's suspension of co-operation with Unscom. It should not be presumed, however, that force is either the most effective or the most politically advisable way to proceed.
The US does not have a right to retaliate unilaterally against Iraq without a further Security Council resolution. Time must be given to allow Mr Annan to probe this breakdown further and for Russia, France and China to exert pressure on Iraq for a diplomatic resolution. It must be part of such an approach to restore the realistic possibility of lifting sanctions if Iraq complies with the arms inspection programme. The sanctions have wreaked untold damage on millions of Iraqi citizens and children, as Mr Albert Reynolds highlighted during his recent visit.
The policy of overthrowing Saddam Hussein was expressly ruled out after the Gulf War; since then it has always been difficult to square the policy of aggressive disarmament and containment pursued by the US and Britain with the prospect of restoring some rough-and-ready normality to international relations with Iraq. It remains true that Saddam Hussein is more likely to be undermined by normalisation than aggressive containment.