The Political Scene

Chief UN arms inspector Hans Blix was due to report to a bitterly divided Security Council on Iraq’s progress on disarmament shortly after MEES press time on 14 February. The rifts in the Security Council have now surfaced within NATO, where France, Germany and Belgium have vetoed what they see as a heavy-handed American attempt to commit the alliance to the use of force without going through the UN. And the EU is to hold a high-risk summit to try to paper over its own differences on Iraq. In other words, this time around the US campaign to build an anti-Iraq coalition has resulted in deep rifts in the Security Council, the transatlantic alliance in general, NATO in particular and the EU. Meanwhile al-Qa’ida leader ‘Usama bin Ladin has called on Muslims to fight alongside apostate socialists if the US attacks Iraq.

Security Council Divided

In the run-up to the 14 February report on Iraq to the Security Council by chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix, the divisions within the council over what to do next about Iraq appear to have widened even further. China came down firmly in favor of continued inspections by UNMOVIC when President Jiang Zemin told French President Jacques Chirac in a 7 February telephone conversation that “the inspections should be allowed to continue. It is the common aspiration of the international community to seek a political solution to the Iraqi question within the framework of the UN.” Next, on 8 February, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan warned the Americans not to act unilaterally when he said that the use of force to back up UN resolutions “is an issue not for any one state, but for the international community as a whole.” On 10 February, Russia, Germany and France issued a joint statement saying that they “favor the continuation of the inspections and a substantial reinforcement of their human and technical capacities…There is still an alternative to war. The use of force can only be considered as a last resort. Russia, Germany and France are determined to ensure that everything possible is done to disarm Iraq peacefully.” After some confusion as to whether France and Germany had drawn up a secret plan for disarming Iraq, a French Foreign Ministry spokesman announced on 9 February that “there is no secret Franco-German plan on Iraqi disarmament. However there are known proposals announced publicly by the foreign minister to the Security Council on 5 February, aimed at strengthening UN inspections in Iraq. These proposals are currently the subject of reflection and discussion with our German partners as with all of our partners at the UN Security Council.” The French then submitted to the Security Council on 11 February proposals to intensify disarmament inspections in order to “compel Iraq to cooperate by taking the peaceful approach of intrusive inspections.” Inter alia these would double or even triple the number of inspectors in Iraq and draw up a prioritized list of unresolved issues “to push the Iraqis up against a wall and not leave them any way out.”

Naturally, none of this went down too well with the Americans, who would ideally like a swift Security Council resolution authorizing the use of the military forces they are continuing to deploy in the region. Secretary of State Colin Powell described the French initiative on 9 February as “the wrong issue,” adding that “the issue is compliance on the part of Saddam Husain. The idea of more inspectors, or a no-fly zone, or whatever else may be in this proposal that is being developed, is a diversion not a solution.” National Security adviser Condoleezza Rice, for her part, opined on the same day that “the French and the Germans are increasingly isolated.” If so, it was not in the Security Council, where at the moment only the UK, Spain and Bulgaria have joined the US in calling for military action. Firmly in the against camp are Russia, France, China, Germany and Syria, while the remaining six members – Angola, Cameroon, Chile, Guinea, Mexico and Pakistan – favor giving inspections more time, but will clearly be subject to intense US pressure to change their minds. However, even if the Americans manage to muster the nine positive votes required to pass a new resolution, they may not be out of the woods. Russian President Vladimir Putin said in an interview published on 13 February that “if it is necessary, we will use our veto, but I do not think it is helpful to get into debate about this at the moment.”

NATO In Crisis

So basic were the differences over Iraq that they could not be contained within the Security Council and spilled over into NATO, where a 15 January US request for contingency planning for the defense of Turkey in the event of hostilities in Iraq – which from a certain angle might be seen as an attempt by Washington to commit NATO to the campaign without going through the UN – was finally vetoed by France, Germany and Belgium on 10 February, prompting Turkey to invoke article four of the NATO treaty (which calls on member countries to consult when one of them feels its territory is threatened).

The three countries argue that agreeing to start NATO planning for a war would send the wrong message at a time when diplomatic efforts to resolve the crisis are continuing at the UN – or, as a French foreign ministry spokesman put it on 12 February, “we cannot, via a decision of NATO, give our implicit support to an armed intervention in Iraq and thus prejudge decisions which belong to the Security Council.” To a US administration which increasingly appears to consider the UN “relevant” only to the degree that supports American positions, this is of course a red rag to a bull, (if not lese-majeste). Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on 9 February that “it’s unfortunate they are in stark disagreement with the rest of the NATO allies…I think it’s a mistake,” adding that the veto would not delay military action against Iraq “because the planning can go forward outside NATO if need be.” Mr Powell, who has been sounding increasingly hawkish of late, on 11 February denied that the US was responsible for the impasse, saying that “we’re not breaking up the alliance, we’re just making sure the alliance, both the UN alliance and the NATO alliance, deals with this responsibility and remains relevant to the task put before it. Who is breaking up the alliance? Not the US. The alliance is breaking itself up because it will not meet its responsibilities.” Mr Powell at least was accurate when he said that “France and Germany and Belgium at the moment are using their blocking power…to signal their disagreement with the approach that we need to bring this to a resolution with Iraq in the very near future at the UN.” (Pentagon hawk Richard Perle had a characteristically more paranoid view of France’s motives: “To be blunt about it, I think it is French policy to diminish American influence in Europe, and indeed in the world.”) But like Mr Rumsfeld, Mr Powell indicated that if the deadlock could not be resolved, the US would go its own way regardless: “We hope that intense diplomacy will persuade those three countries that this is the time to stand by a fellow NATO member who has asked for help. If we do not succeed in breaking that deadlock in NATO, I think that would be unfortunate. But, nevertheless, we would go ahead with those nations who are so inclined…to provide that support to Turkey.”

At MEES press time on 14 February five days of intensive consultations had failed to resolve the crisis within the alliance, and NATO spokesman Yves Brodeur announced that “after consultations between countries, it was decided that it would be difficult to make progress in a formal meeting. We have delayed the meeting until a later time,” adding that “it could be tomorrow, it could be next week.” Meanwhile the country at the eye of the storm, Turkey, which criticized the Franco/German/Belgian veto as undermining the alliance’s credibility, was making it clear that it

supported the three countries’ position on seeking UN authorization before resorting to force. The leader of the ruling AKP party, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, told the Anatolia News Agency on 12 February that the government would only seek parliamentary authorization for the deployment of US troops on Turkish soil “after discussions…on the resolution the UN Security Council will take.”

Greece Gambles On EU Summit

The rifts in NATO and the UN extend into the EU as well, where the last attempt to come up with a common position on Iraq – a joint statement on 27 January – lasted just four days. Nonetheless, the current EU president, Greece, announced on 11 February that all the present 15 EU members (but not the candidate members scheduled to join in April) would attend an informal summit in Brussels on 17 February to try to restore a unified position on Iraq. Greek government spokesman Christos Protopapas explained the decision by saying that “it is necessary, and it is our firm conviction, that Europe should remain united in this crucial period.” But there was an obvious risk that a summit would backfire and demonstrate the opposite, since it is hard to see how the positions of, say, France and Britain can be reconciled (or how either country can back off at this stage). Greek Foreign Ministry spokesman Panos Beglitis admitted as much on 12 February when he said that “it is our target and our political will to go to the meeting on Monday for a common position. If this is not achievable then the Greek presidency will have exhausted all the institutional and political possibilities a presidency has in its hands. The EU will enter a deep crisis.” The prospects for the summit brightened somewhat the next day when Greece announced that Mr Annan would drop in on the meeting. But even with the UN secretary-general cheering them on, it was clear that if the EU leaders were going to paper over their differences, it was going to require a fair amount of paper.

Bin Ladin Resurfaces

With the Security Council and NATO in disarray, ‘Usama bin Ladin decided to stir the pot with an audio tape broadcast by al-Jazira TV on 11 February. In it, the al-Qa’ida leader said that “we are following with interest the crusaders’ preparations to reoccupy the ancient capital of Islam…this crusader war concerns all Muslims, whether Saddam remains in power or not.” Consequently, he continued, “under the circumstances, there is nothing wrong in Muslim interests converging with those of the socialists in the battle against the crusaders, even if we believe and declare that the socialists are apostates.” For good measure he added that socialists are “infidels wherever they are, in Baghdad or Aden.”

With an alacrity that suggested nothing so much as desperation, US officials seized on these remarks as proof positive of Iraq’s involvement with al-Qa’ida. (Considering that Mr bin Ladin said that it is now acceptable for Muslims to fight alongside apostate socialists, it would be at least equally (if not more) logical to conclude that it was previously unacceptable and that therefore the Iraqis have hitherto not been collaborating with al-Qa’ida.) Mr Powell opined on 11 February that “once again he speaks to the people of Iraq and talks about their struggle and how he is in partnership with Iraq,” which is stretching the meaning of Mr bin Ladin’s more than a little. And it was stretched even further on the same day by State Department spokesman Richard Boucher, who said that “he threatens everybody in the Arab world except Saddam Husain, he says he wants to fight with Saddam Husain. He says that he will fight with the socialists, the socialists of Iraq, the Ba'th party. They are bound by a common hatred, that’s what you have bin Ladin confirming today. This does confirm that bin Ladin and Saddam Husain seem to find common cause together.”

Charles Snow