By Dan Plesch, The Guardian (GreatBritain)
President Bush's concern over Iraq's weapons ofmass destruction is a pretext for a global strategy of pre-emptiveattack. He and his advisers intend to establish precedents with Iraqthat can be used against other states that stand out against USglobal control. The US, he says, cannot allow anyone the capacity toattack it, but the country will keep its own power to destroyall-comers.
How we tackle this debate is critical. How theIraq crisis is resolved will shape future crises, for Iraq willprobably be part of a series of campaigns against the "axis of evil".It is likely that Saddam does have some WMD, likely that the securitycouncil will endorse action that ends in his overthrow and likelythat the war will be won quite easily. Iraq's forces were shatteredand have not been rebuilt, US power is unbelievablygreater.
Why then should President Bush's policy be opposedand what changes must we insist on? He summarises his policy astackling "the worst weapons in the hands of the worst leaders". Butlittle is being done with respect to the "worst weapons". Attempts bythe international community to control nuclear, biological andchemical weapons have been relentlessly undermined by Bush'sRepublican party for more than a decade.
Military action against states floutinginternational norms on WMD can only be justified if we and the US areimplementing them too. Saying "do as we say", not "do as we do", isan invitation to everyone to acquire them. Tony Blair is makingterrorism and proliferation far easier by accepting Bush's deliberateintroduction of anarchy in international security. Members of theBush administration were in office in the 1980s and were silent whenIraq used poison gas on Iran, the US's arch-enemy at the time. And wein Britain may have forgotten that our airforce used poison gas tosuppress rebellion in Iraq in the inter-war period; one can be surethat the Iraqis have not.
You will hear two further arguments in support ofUS policy. The first is: "We are democracies so our weapons are OKand we do not need further control." This is no more than saying thatbecause we are good we cannot be bad. The second is that only westernnations believe in ethics and law, so they are no good in the realworld. This is as self-contradictory as the first, and insidiouslyracist.
Sustained by such principles, the architects ofPresident Bush's policy hope to see it applied to Iran, North Koreaand, ultimately, China. For those Republicans who pride themselves onhaving destroyed the Soviet Union and unified Germany, their duty nowis to achieve the same success over Beijing's nuclear-armed communistdictatorship, which oppresses the
Tibetans, runs its economy from a prison gulag andrepresses religious freedom.
Friends look at me as if I have lost the plot whenI say this. But John Bolton, Richard Perle, Condoleezza Rice, FrankGaffney and Paul Wolfowitz have no problem with a pre-emptivepolitical-military strategy towards an emerging China. AmbassadorDavid Smith, who contributed to the influential National Institutefor Public Policy report on nuclear strategy, explained that "the UShas never accepted a deterrent relationship based on mutual assureddestruction with China" and will act to prevent China gaining such acapability.
Even though we were told that deterrence hadstopped Saddam from using his weapons in the last Gulf war, now it issaid that he cannot be deterred and must be pre-empted. Yet it issafer and easier to replace deterrence with elimination of all WMD. Apolicy of inspections that are militarily enforced would be quiteuseful if it were applied universally and provided a guaranteeagainst one nation breaking a global ban on nuclear arms. We need touse the fact that WMD and human rights are now on the internationalagenda as an opportunity. The introduction of a pre-emptive strategyby Washington contradicts Nato strategy and must be rejected at thealliance's November summit.
Our immediate focus should be a precise and publicdebate on the terms of the cabinet discussion, in accordance with theconstitutional principle of collective responsibility. We shouldinsist that the UN mandate a conference to manage and eliminate allWMD without exception - including American and British nuclearweapons - in accordance with the existing obligations of UN memberstates.
If economic and other events do not deflect anattack on Iraq, there will be no declaration of war by the Commonsbecause our constitution gives that power to the prime minister.Perhaps people should insist that parliament change the constitution,so that it appropriates the power to make war on behalf of thepeople. Britain would then be importing some of America's democratic,rather than its military, strength.
Friday September 13, 2002
Dan Plesch is senior research fellow at theRoyal United Services Institute and author of Sheriff and Outlaws inthe Global Village
dplesch@rusi.org
Guardian Unlimited © GuardianNewspapers Limited 2002