When a world leader warns of the danger that the confrontation over Iraq could lead to world war, as President Yeltsin did yesterday, he must be taken very seriously indeed. It is as well to assume he means what he says and is responding to pressures from domestic and international sources. His warning that President Clinton is being too reckless in his threats to use force against Iraq and that the United Nations Security Council does not go along with military strikes must reinforce diplomatic efforts to resolve the arms inspection crisis. All sides are playing for high stakes in this game. It would be a tragic indeed were a miscalculation to allow it to spiral out of control.
For the last two weeks the United States has been talking up the crisis, with virtually daily warnings that time is running out for a diplomatic solution. It is, of course, essential that the threat of force should be clearly understood to be a consequence of failing to find a diplomatic solution. But any such resort must be achieved by agreement of the Security Council - Russia, France and China included. While the US and Britain have been pressing the case for military action, in continuation of their traditionally hawkish line on Iraq, Russia and France are seeking to broker an agreement to meet the demands for unconditional access to the sites that have been denied them by Saddam Hussein. There was significant if as yet unsatisfactory evidence yesterday that their efforts can bear fruit.
The British Foreign Office yesterday released further estimates of the frightening arsenal of nerve gas alleged to be missing from Iraq's war machine. According to Mr Tony Blair in the House of Commons, if Saddam Hussein is not stopped "there is every possibility he will develop these weapons of mass destruction and, on the basis of experience, use them". This presumption underlies the aggressive approach taken in Washington and London and explains why leaders and officials there have been so sceptical about compromise offers or proposals from Russia, France and the Iraqis themselves. The French Foreign Minister, Mr Vedrine, says in contrast that a bombing attack could end up strengthening, not weakening, the Iraqi leader, partly because it would rally neighbouring Arab states to his cause.
Clearly there are profoundly different perceptions underlying these significant disagreements between the major powers involved in the confrontation with Iraq. It is not difficult to identify differing interests as well, including potentially lucrative oil deals which could bolster Russia's state finances or France's petrochemical industries were sanctions against Iraq to be lifted. Such varied perceptions and interests have a long continuity of policy and tradition for their respective states. But it is as well to pay the closest attention to them when talk of world war erupts, in recognition of how previous such conflicts originated. The next days and weeks will determine whether this crisis can be resolved peacefully by diplomatic means. If it is to be, there will have to be more evidence than has so far been forthcoming that Iraq is willing to reciprocate. Despite the French insistence on diplomatic means, its leaders have let it be known that their resistance to the use of force is not unconditional. Iraq will need to convince France above all that it is serious about resolving this confrontation diplomatically.