TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/112690/1126640.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 6.2 KB | 127 lines

                                                                                ESSAY, Page 106

The Case for War


By George J. Church


    So Congress wants to reassert its constitutional prerogative
to decide whether or not the nation should go to war. About
time. U.S. Presidents have gone much too far toward claiming
(or rather exercising  without even bothering to claim) the
power of Louis XIV to send a whole nation into battle on his
sole judgment, even whim. The makers of the Constitution were
determined never to give one man that power in the new
republic, and they were right. If the U.S. is to fight Iraq,
it should be by conscious decision of its elected
representatives, reached after full debate.

    But that debate should not be dominated by the antiwar
critics, as the front and op-ed pages have been in the past few
days. In a full-fledged congressional debate, one may hope, the
case for war will be argued more forcefully and cogently than
an oddly tongue-tied Bush Administration has lately managed to
do. And there is a compelling case for war. Yes, even if one
believes, as I do, that it will probably not be won in a week
or so by heavy bombing, but may turn into a long, bloody and
disruptive struggle with major casualties.

    Oil is one reason, and to make (not concede) that point is
by no means to admit that we would be fighting for a few cents
a gallon on the price of gasoline or to maintain a fat,
self-indulgent life-style. What is at stake is the power to
shut off the heat in millions of homes, freezing the old and
frail; to close down thousands of factories and utility plants,
causing mass unemployment and no little additional poverty. A
price run-up or supply restriction sharp enough could touch off
a similar worldwide recession -- and an inflationary recession
to boot. That power cannot be put into the hands of a
megalomaniac who can be trusted to deal with anyone who might
try to stop him by squeezing in the most vulnerable spot. And
if Saddam Hussein gets away with his seizure of Kuwait, he will
be master not only of the supplies from that nation and his own
Iraq, but also, through invasion or bullying, of the oil pumped
out of Saudi Arabia, the gulf sheikdoms and other states. Of
course, the U.S. should have acted long ago to lessen its
dependence on foreign oil. Of course, it should do everything
it can in that direction now. So what? For the immediate
future, a reliable supply of oil at affordable prices is vital
to any modern economy. It just is, and the loftiest moral and
ecological disapproval cannot change that brute fact.

    But oil is not the only or even main cause for war, whatever
the cynics say. Would the U.S. have fought to conquer the
Middle Eastern oil fields if Saddam Hussein had peacefully
persuaded Kuwait, Saudi Arabia et al. to restrict production
enough to shoot the price up to $40 per bbl.? Get real. The
central issue is aggression, and how -- make that whether --
it can be contained in the post-cold war world. And forget all
the moaning about shedding blood to keep feudal autocracies in
control of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. One might well wish for
more appealing victims and potential victims to champion. But
if aggression is to be opposed only when the targets are kindly
liberal democracies, the world is going to become a far more
dangerous, savage and bloody place.

    Comparisons of Saddam Hussein to Hitler may be overblown.
The Iraqi dictator has not built a Middle Eastern Auschwitz --
yet. But Saddam does seem to share one Hitlerian trait
identified by British historian Alan Bullock: he is "consumed
[by] the will to power in its crudest  and purest form . . .
power and domination for its own sake," to be expanded without
limit. If Saddam is allowed to keep part of Kuwait -- and make
no mistake, that is what those advocating a "diplomatic
solution" are hinting at -- he will be back to take a bite out
of another victim. Not right away, maybe, but after the U.S.
troops have left Saudi Arabia and all has returned to a
delusive quiet. If he meets resistance, he will use chemical,
bacteriological and, one day, nuclear weapons. Millions may
die.

    Nor is Saddam the only leader who would redraw the map of
the world by force -- to rectify border disputes, reclaim
"unredeemed" territory, seize a neighbor's natural resources.
What lesson would these others draw from a failure to stop
Saddam? Go ahead. The U.S. certainly will not stop you. Oh, it
may shout and scream and bluster. But if it did not use force
when a vital economic interest was threatened, when it had a
clear moral justification and the support of a worldwide
coalition, when would it? Letting Iraq's aggression stand is a
recipe for a world of endless aggressions, of local and
not-so-local wars, some possibly nuclear (India vs. Pakistan
for a fourth round? Israel against the Arabs yet again?), and
of bloody chaos from which the U.S. could not forever stand
aloof.

    But, says the antiwar faction, Saddam can be turned back
without war, by persistence in the embargo. If only that were
true! All too probably, those who make this argument are
deluding themselves. Far more likely, if Iraq is still
occupying Kuwait next Aug. 2, a year after the invasion, much
of the world will conclude that Saddam has won. The embargo
will begin leaking badly; nation after nation will start
casting around for a diplomatic solution; Washington itself
will be under growing pressure to bring G.I.s home from Saudi
Arabia where they will have been "sitting around in the sand
for a year accomplishing nothing." A formula will be found to
let Iraq keep part of Kuwait. Curtains for any hope of a world
in which aggression does not pay.

    Maybe, just maybe, Saddam can be scared out of Kuwait by the
threat of a war that would destroy his military machine and/or
his life. But that would require something like an ultimatum,
backed by a genuine readiness to fight, and Saddam might not
believe it even then. So the U.S. has to prepare for war.
Anyone with a shred of human feeling can say that only with a
suppressed scream of fear and pain. The U.S. confronts a
bitter, tragic, even ghastly necessity. But, this time, it is
a necessity that there is no honorable way to avoid.