TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/040891/0408100.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 10.8 KB | 219 lines

                                                                                NATION, Page 22

Keeping Hands Off


As Saddam's loyalists pound the rebels, the carnage inside Iraq
poses a quandary with no attractive alternatives for the U.S.

By GEORGE J. CHURCH -- Reported by Dan Goodgame/Washington and
Robert T. Zintl/Tehran, with other bureaus


    Is George Bush supporting Saddam Hussein? The question
sounds insane, but a number of critics charge that he is, in
effect, by not helping the rebels fighting to oust the
archdemon. Bush, after all, denounced the Iraqi dictator as
being in some respects "worse than Hitler," organized a
multinational crusade to crush his military power and repeatedly
called for his overthrow. For the past four weeks, Shi`ite
Muslims in the south and Kurds in the north have been trying to
accomplish just that. Yet after Bush met with his top national
security advisers last week, the President made it clear that
U.S. military forces now occupying southern Iraq will give no
overt assistance to the rebels.

    That decision, moreover, was made in full knowledge that
Saddam is likely not just to defeat the insurrections but to
massacre their supporters by the thousands. That is already
happening in the south, where Saddam loyalists reportedly have
regained control of nearly all the towns once captured by the
Shi`ites and are taking a fearsome revenge. Refugees by the
thousands have fled across the American lines, seeking succor
and narrating tales of torture and mass executions.

    Now, predicts a U.S. official, "it's going to get really
ugly" for the Kurdish fighters who have taken much of
northeastern Iraq. "Saddam's probably going to use helicopter
gunships, fixed-wing bombers, chemical weapons, napalm -- the
works." U.S. forces earlier had forbidden the Iraqi military to
fly warplanes and had actually shot down two. Washington had
further hinted that it might attack helicopters flying against
the rebels and retaliate, presumably by bombing, if Saddam used
chemical weapons or napalm against his own people. But by the
end of last week those warnings were exposed as a bluff that did
not work. Saddam's forces did use all kinds of aircraft to
devastating effect in an assault that Baghdad claimed had
recaptured the northern oil center of Kirkuk -- and the U.S.
made no attempt to stop them.

    To some columnists and Middle East experts, this policy
seemed a disgraceful combination of cynicism and moral
abdication. Several critics accused the President of reverting
to his pre-August view of Saddam as a force for stability in the
region, at least in the sense of being preferable to chaos. As
to the moral argument, some in the Administration acknowledged
discomfort. One official conceded, "It seems to me just like
Hungary in 1956. Having called on people to overthrow their
repressive leadership, we just sit back and watch them get
slaughtered." Other commentators came up with a different
analogy: the Red Army halting outside Warsaw in 1944 and doing
nothing to stop a Nazi massacre of the Jewish ghetto residents
who had risen in revolt.

    White House officials rejected the charges. "The only
pressure for the U.S. to intervene is coming from columnists and
commentators," said a senior presidential aide. He and other
Bush advisers contend that the American public overwhelmingly
wants U.S. troops to be brought home as rapidly as possible.
Another White House official adds that "our coalition partners,"
both European and Arab, "don't want us getting involved in
Iraq's internal affairs" either. If the U.S. were to choose
sides, it would be exceeding the U.N. mandates under which it
fought the war, and with little support abroad or at home.

    And for what? A number of experts contend that the U.S.
knows next to nothing about those who are fighting, what they
want and whether they might be able to run part or all of the
country. "There are no real groups competing for power," says
a U.S. analyst. "The Baathists have destroyed them all." Bush's
advisers fear that if some loose combination of rebels won, they
would not be able to exercise effective control over the
institutions dominated by Saddam's fellow Sunni Muslims -- the
army, the security police and the Baath party -- that have kept
Iraq together. The country could well splinter into rival
fragments that might be gobbled up by neighboring Iran, Syria
and Turkey, leading to instability throughout the Middle East.
Or the rebels might provoke other multi-ethnic states to
splinter. The Kurds, for example, have said they seek only
autonomy within a federated Iraq, but American officials think
that after a successful rebellion the Kurds would declare
outright independence. That in turn would inspire agitation
among Kurdish minorities in Turkey, Syria and Iran to join a
Greater Kurdistan.

    Alternatively, Iraq might sink into a long-running,
multisided civil war, like Lebanon -- and "Lebanon" now rivals
"Vietnam" as a one-word summation of the Administration's worst
nightmares. The Kurds and Shi`ites, says a Bush adviser, were
"fighting the Sunnis for years before we got there, and they'll
continue killing each other long after we've gone." U.S. forces,
moreover, might not be able to stay out of such a bloody
quagmire. Having helped depose Saddam, Washington might be
obliged to get involved in selecting and propping up a successor
government. But the U.S., observes an Administration official,
"has a history of horrible results when it tried to impose
governments on other countries."

    The principal holdout against a hands-off policy was
George Bush. The President was so eager to see Saddam overthrown
that he insisted on warnings to the Iraqi leader not to use
maximum force against the insurgents. The threats, however,
scared Saddam less than they did congressional leaders of both
parties, who rushed to the White House to urge Bush to do
nothing that would interfere with the speedy return of American
soldiers. Finally, when it came time last week to put up or shut
up on his warnings to Saddam, Bush decided to shut up. His
spokesman Marlin Fitzwater made it official: "We do not intend
to involve ourselves in the internal conflicts in Iraq."

    That probably means no one will save the Iraqi rebels.
Like the U.S., Iraq's neighboring powers would dearly love to
see Saddam overthrown. But also like the U.S. -- though for
different reasons -- they are unwilling to give the
insurrectionists enough help to assure their victory.
Overwhelmingly Shi`ite Iran has allowed some Iraqis who either
defected or were taken prisoner during the 1980-88 war between
the two countries to infiltrate back into Iraq and join the
Shi`ite rebels in the south. There are widespread suspicions
that Iran has smuggled some arms to them too, though Tehran
denies it. In any case, the southern rebels say they have not
received enough help to be effective. The Iranians "are very
stingy," complains a Shi`ite opposition leader.

    Though Iran would no doubt be delighted to have a
congenial Shi`ite regime as a neighbor, its principal short-term
goal appears to be to end its isolation and woo investment from
the West to help rebuild its shattered economy. What Iran needs
is, in a word, money. That dictates soft-pedaling attempts to
export Islamic fundamentalist revolution and professing
devotion to Middle Eastern stability. Tehran figures the best
way to achieve its goals is to cool its "Great Satan" rhetoric
and keep things quiet enough to convince Washington that
withdrawal of its troops would be safe.

    Turkey is too afraid of abetting nationalist sentiments
among its own Kurdish minority (an estimated 7 million in a
population of 56 million) to risk helping Kurds in Iraq. Foreign
Ministry officials in Ankara did meet recently with heads of the
Iraqi Kurdish insurrection but offered them only "moral support"
-- and only on condition that they forswear any ambitions to
set up an independent Kurdistan.

    Syria has encouraged the formation of a joint-action
committee representing all of Saddam's opponents and has
arranged a meeting for the group -- in Beirut, not Damascus. As
that suggests, Syria is also cautious about getting too close
to the rebels, even though Syrian leader Hafez Assad and Saddam
nurture a long-standing mutual hatred. The allied crushing of
Saddam's offensive military power has already effectively
removed him as Assad's rival for Middle East power and
influence. Though Assad doubtless would like to see the job
finished by Saddam's personal downfall, he would not necessarily
want that to be accomplished by the rise of either Shi`ites or
Kurds. His ideal outcome would be a friendly military regime set
up by a coup organized by pro-Syrian Baathist generals.

    The U.S. also nourishes some hope that Saddam will
eventually be replaced by his own military. Some U.S. officials
argue that the rebellions make Saddam's demise less likely
because Iraq's Sunni elite has been forced to close ranks around
the dictator to save their own skins. Once the insurrection is
quelled, goes the theory, the Sunnis may feel free to dump the
leader.

    If not? Then, Washington hopes, the cease-fire resolution
shaping up in the U.N. Security Council will defang and
humiliate Iraq so completely that it will never again be a
threat to its neighbors, no matter who holds power in Baghdad.
The resolution would require Iraq to destroy all its chemical
and biological weapons and ballistic missiles under the eyes of
international inspectors, turn over all nuclear material that
could be fashioned into atomic weapons, and pay reparations to
Kuwait out of future oil revenues. The U.S. sold the other four
permanent members of the Security Council on the resolution last
week. Though a hitch developed when the Soviets tried to exempt
missiles with a range of 200 miles or less, the U.S., British
and French objected so violently that Moscow dropped the idea.
Some of the 10 rotating members, who have no veto power, raised
objections to other provisions, but the outlook is for the
resolution to pass this week in the shape Washington wants.

    Acceptance of the terms is the only way Iraq can bring the
worldwide trade embargo to an end. Once the cease-fire is
approved, U.N. observers would move in to monitor a
demilitarized zone on both sides of the Iraq-Kuwait border;
after they are in place, Washington will feel free to bring home
the rest of its soldiers. That may not do much to make the
Middle East less of a breeding ground for war or to bring
democracy to Iraq. But the U.S. and its allies at least will
have fought off a threat to world oil supplies, defeated a naked
aggression and destroyed the offensive military power of a
world-class bully -- and, for the moment at least, that, in the
Bush Administration's view, is enough.