TIME: Desert Storm - The War in the Persian Gulf/TIME: Desert Storm - The War in the Persian Gulf.iso/time2_04/cf040105.t12

Text File | 1991-06-27 | 5.8 KB | 125 lines

DATE: JAN. 25, 1991      15:26               REPORT: 1
TO: SPL
FOR: BEYER
CC:
BUREAU: MIDWEST
BY: GAVIN SCOTT
IN:
SLUG: TOUGH OPTIONS

 University of Chicago Psychology Professor Marvin Zonis,
who has written extensively on Midweast politics, sees
little distinction in heavily bombarding the highly
professional Iraqi Republican guard and relatively raw
conscripts. "As long as these people together represent
the principal fighting strength of the regime, they are
the enemy. If they all die, then that's what happens. You
can hope that the assaults will result in such a state
that the conscripts will check out. But surrender does
not seem to me likely."

 The ruling theme, in Zonis' mind, is that almost
conventional bombing that will minimize American
casualties is justified. "I don't care whether they are
14 years old, 19 or 32," he says. "Thse distinctions
can't be reasonably maintained. You can't say to the
Iraqis that all of you in this group step to the left,
all of you in that group step to the right. I don't
celebrate this. But I can't imagine making such
distinctions."

 Targetting Saddam, says Zonis, is a laudable aim,
difficult to pull off. "It would be a very good thing to
do but it's hard to pull off," he says. Saddam's
departure from the scene would eventually lead to a stop
to the war -- if not overnight. "There are cadres who
would try to step in, but these individuals couldn't hold
the system together. There would be a commotion and
perhaps a coup d'etat. But it would come apart at the
center." Zonis puts the small, ruling elite at "a narrow
core" of between 800 and 1,000. "In the end, it's a
perfect instance of hanging together or hanging
separately. The reason there has been no assassination is
they need to keep him at the center in order to
survive."

 Saddam, says Zonis, "has written himself off the ledger
of crebility by lobbing SCUDs into Tel Aviv." Thus
carpetbombing is fair enough, all in the name of making a
land invasion unnecessary. Saddam doubtless will argue to
Arab street opinion that th U.S., with its immense air
superiority, is not taking on someone its own size. But
that is of little consequence. Zonis predicts that there
will be a quick allied land offensive in Kuwait and it
will last less than 24 hours. "You have to remember that
an Iraq division has the firepower of a World War II
division. This is not Iran they're dealing with. The
allied side has overwhelming strength." The land
offensive, fortunately in Zonis' view, "will not come
under the scrutiny of CNN" and the allies "weill make
pretty fast work of it." He dismisses recent
Administration warnings that the war may take months to
prosecute as "a little bit of disinformation."

 Prof. John Mearsheimer, an expert on military strategy
and chairman of political ascience at the University of
Chicago, shares much of the substance of Zonis' opinions.
Mearsheimer argued in The Atlantic last summer that the
end of the Cold War did not necessarily portend peace
because there is inherent instability in a world order
where a number of states contend for dominance. He says
that there is no moral or political difference in
attacking the Republican Guard and the frontline Iraqi
conscripts on the frontline in Kuwait. "I've never heard
this question," says Mearsheimer. "These forces are all
part of the same military machine. They are fighting a
war."

 Mearsheimer further contends that there is nothing
immoral about targetting Saddam himself. "But it's not
good policy. First, you're not likely to get anybody
better. Second, you waste resources trying to find him.
Third, in the effort to get him, you'd be killing
civilians." In his view, "one important thing is not to
escalate our objectives into remaking Iraq or throwing
Saddam out of Iraq. The other important thing is to
destroy his nuclear and chemical weapons. Our aim should
be to defang Saddam, not eliminate him. We must keep Iraq
together as an entity. It's a fine line to walk --
between beating up on him militarily, but not making him
so weak it invites other powers in the region in." He
cites both Iran and Syria as the obvious candidates which
might seek to fill a vacuum "and ultimately Turkey,
seeking to resolve the Kurdish question." Even if Saddam
were by some means eliminated, the war would not stop,
says Mearsheimer. "While it's not axiomatically true, the
elite would continue." Simply chasing Saddam around Iraq
provides no dividends. "In fact it would probably
strengthn his position because it would show he is
untouchable. We shouldn't be worrying about killing
Saddam Hussein. We should be getting him out of Kuwait
and stripping him of his capacity to use mass destruction
weapons. We can leave it at that."

 Mearsheimer disputes that the use of tactical nuclear
weapons is a lively possibility. "Extremely unlikely and
unnecessary," says Mearsheimer. "The ground forces will
not have much trouble at all. The U.S. would be reluctant
to use nuclear weaponss for all the obvious reasons such
a superpower precedent would create."

 If, after the war, Saddam maintains to his Arab
clientele that he has heroically taken on a superpower,
survived and therefore is a modern Saladin, Mearsheimer
says so what. "What Saddam Hussein says is not important.
The question is reducing his military capability but not
eliminating it." Mearsheimer predicts that a ground
offensive will take less than a week to complete and that
it will occur in mid- February at the latest. "The allied
side can't sit on it past March. I'm surprised how the
media has forgotten all about the weather." If the war
were to continue beyond, he adds, "the Adnministration
will run into significant diplomatic and domestic
problems and these are to be avoided."