VOL. XLVI
No 11
Another week of debate at the UN has moved the Security Council no nearer to agreement on Iraq, despite British attempts to engineer a compromise on the draft resolution tabled by the US. Turkey is still in no hurry to authorize the use of its territory by US forces and may even be denying the Americans the use of its airspace. US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has done little to reward beleaguered British Prime Minister Tony Blair for his support.
UN No Nearer To Agreement
Another week of protracted bickering in the Security Council has done little to resolve the deep differences between the permanent members over Iraq, despite attempts by the UK to paper over the cracks with modifications to the resolution tabled by the US on 24 February. On 7 March Britain put forward an amendment to the draft resolution stating that Iraq will have failed to grasp its final opportunity to disarm peacefully “unless, on or before 17 March, the council concludes that Iraq has demonstrated full, unconditional, immediate and active cooperation” with the UN arms inspectors. This deadline was immediately rejected by French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin, who said that behind the amendment “there is the idea of an ultimatum, the 17th of March. This is the logic of war …France will not allow a resolution to pass which would authorize the automatic use of force.” On 10 March President Jacques
Chirac indicated that France would veto the resolution even if it received the necessary nine positive votes, saying that “there could, effectively, be a majority of nine votes or more for a new resolution, one which would authorize war. If that was the case, France would vote no. France will vote no because she considers tonight that there is no reason to wage a war to reach the goal we set ourselves, that is the disarmament of Iraq.” Coincidentally or not, Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said on the same day “Russia believes there is no need for any additional UN Security Council resolutions. And that is why Russia has openly stated that if the draft resolution which has now been tabled and which includes unattainable ultimatums and demands is put to the vote, then Russia will use its vote against the resolution.” (Mr Ivanov was also dismissive of US ambitions to remodel the Middle East, saying that “attempts to export democracy, especially to countries with cultures that have survived through the centuries, are doomed to failure. Forcing democracy – and a single model of the world – is impossible.”)
Faced with seemingly implacable French and Russian opposition, the UK on 12 March attempted to win over the swing voters on the Security Council - Angola, Cameroon, Chile, Guinea, Mexico and Pakistan – by floating the idea of adding to the resolution six “benchmarks” which Iraq must meet by an unspecified deadline to avert hostilities, including a televised admission by President Saddam Husain that Iraq had been trying to conceal weapons of mass destruction. This proposal was evidently intended to win over the uncommitted voters by extending the original 17 March deadline, however minimally, while at the same time setting the bar too high for the Iraqis to clear. However it immediately ran into objections from the French and Russian UN ambassadors, with the former arguing that “there is on the table a draft resolution which authorizes the use of force; that is what is at stake” and the latter saying “it’s still about war and peace and we are not convinced that this proposal takes care of our concerns.” Even the US was lukewarm about the idea, with UN ambassador John Negroponte thanking the British for their “unstinting efforts to mobilize support” for the proposal but noting that “our resolution is the only resolution on the table and we have not backed away from our 17 March deadline.” The next day Mr de Villepin reiterated that “it is not a question of giving Iraq a few more days before resorting to force, but of going forward resolutely along the path of peaceful disarmament laid down by the inspections, which are a credible alternative to war.” Mr Ivanov for his part, said that “it is premature to say how Russia will vote as there is not yet a concrete draft resolution on the table, “ but that “if this resolution paves the way, either directly or indirectly, to military action against Iraq, Russia will vote against it.”
At the end of the week, however, there were contradictory signals emanating from the UN. In an apparent concession to British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s desperately beleaguered situation, the US, which had previously said it would force the issue (and a vote) by the end of the week (i.e. 14 March), abruptly reversed itself when White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said on 13 March that “the diplomatic process is under way and it may conclude tomorrow, it may continue into next week.” At the same time Mr Powell indicated that the US might not go for a vote at all, telling a congressional committee on the same day that “we are still talking to the members of the council with respect to coalescing around a position that wouldn’t draw a veto, but the options remain: go for a vote and see what the members say, or not go for a vote. We will be examining them today, tomorrow and into the weekend.” The diplomatic barometer swung briefly upward when Mr de Villepin said on 13 March that “we want a solution and we are looking for consensus within the Security Council. Everything must be tried to preserve the unity of the Security Council and we are working towards that. France confirms its openness to seize all opportunities.” However it plunged again the next day when he went on TV to say “should we go to war to preserve the unity of the international community? What surprising reasoning. That is a hasty rush that seems dangerous to me.” And when Russian deputy Foreign Minister Yuri Fedotov said on the same day that “the British proposals on Iraq are not constructive and do not solve the main problem, preventing the use of force against Baghdad,” it looked as if there was little hope of a second resolution before the Americans run out of patience and/or time.
Erdogan In No Hurry
The leader of Turkey’s ruling AKP party, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has duly been elected to parliament and installed as prime minister, but apparently continues to feel no urgent need to resolve the question of whether to allow the US to use Turkish territory to open a second front against Iraq in the north. Indeed, Turkey’s ambassador to the US indicated on 12 March that Turkish airspace (as well as territory) might be off limits to the US when he said that US aircraft operating out of the Incerlik base would not be able to take part in any offensive operation against Iraq without parliamentary approval. And Turkish reluctance to assist the US was indirectly confirmed when, following a telephone call to Mr Erdogan from US Defense Secretary Dick Cheney on 13 March, US officials let it be known that the US was moving 15 ships and submarines from the eastern Mediterranean to the Red Sea, where they could use Saudi airspace to launch their cruise missiles at Iraq. The fact that the Saudis are allowing the Americans the use of their airspace is almost as much of a surprise as the Turks’ refusal to allow the use of theirs. And the decision to move the ships to the Red Sea also raises the interesting question of why the Americans did not use the most obvious alternative to Turkey, the Israeli/Jordanian option.
With Friends Like These…
British Prime Minister Tony Blair has gone out on what is looking like an extremely precarious political limb in his support for the American position on Iraq, facing an unprecedented revolt within his own Labour party and a nascent mutiny in his cabinet, where International Development Secretary Clare Short has stated openly that she will resign if he goes to war on the basis of resolution 1441 alone. Indeed, having sent a significant percentage of the British armed forces to the Gulf, it is beginning to look as if the prime minister may have staked his political future on obtaining a second UN resolution authorizing the use of force. (And Mr Blair told Conservative party leader Iain Duncan Smith on 13 March that a second resolution “is now probably less likely than at any time before.”) In the circumstances, the last thing he needed was for the Americans to say they do not really need the British on board anyway. Yet that is exactly what Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld appeared to do on 11 March when he said that “to the extent that they (the British) are able to participate in the event that the president decides to use force, that would obviously be welcomed. To the extent they are not able to participate, there are works around, and they would not be involved.” Presumably after protests from London, Mr Rumsfeld issued a statement later in the day saying that he had been “simply pointing out that obtaining a second UN Security Council resolution is important to the UK” and that “in the event that a decision to use force is made, we have every reason to believe there will be a significant military contribution from the UK.” But that did little to remove the unpleasant taste left by his earlier, cavalier dismissal of Britain’s military contribution or to contradict the impression that Mr Rumsfeld and his fellow Pentagon hawks see Britain’s main contribution as providing international political cover for what is essentially an American enterprise.
Charles Snow