Throughout the latest crisis with Saddam Hussein, the belligerent bluff of the United States and Britain has proven its ability to coerce him into complying with the world's opinion.
For the past four months, the world has witnessed unprecedented cooperation from Iraq over intrusive inspections and destruction of its prized chemical, biological and nuclear facilities. The exhaustive buildup and brinkmanship rhetoric of America and Britain have catalyzed the regime in Baghdad to action. The gamble has been working. But in the past month, Hussein has slowly but surely returned to his "old tricks," revealing only what he believes the world knows about, and objecting to widely supported initiatives -- such as the U2 flights over Iraq -- over technicalities. Why has he done so? Has the militant gambit played by America and Britain failed the world? It is still too soon to tell, but all indications seem to point to the failure of the latest of 12 resolutions on disarmament. And it is the peace-loving protesters and fickle veto-wielding states that have caused it to fail.
Until about two months ago, Hussein's actions showed he was scared. The most powerful military in the world, mandated by a resolution passed unanimously by the nations of the U.N. Security Council, seemed intent on invading his country for the second time in 12 years. As it became apparent that the United Nations and the United States meant what they said, Hussein had begun to turn over more and more documents and materials that pertained to his programs of mass destruction.
But then a light emerged from the end of Hussein's dark tunnel. Around the world, a grassroots "anti-war" movement had begun to attract widespread support in important nations around the globe. But this anti-war movement was different from other movements with the same name. This anti-war movement had sprung up before the actual start of hostilities between any belligerent nations. As this movement gained momentum, important players in international politics began to espouse the rhetoric of the movement. France, Germany and Russia, responding partially to the public sentiment in their countries, but also to the outcries of the industrialists in their constituency who feared for their lucrative investments in Iraq, began to lead an international movement to oppose war on Iraq.
And suddenly Hussein's position seemed a little safer. The anti-war movement had sent a loud message to the governments of the world: The populations of the world oppose a war on Iraq. But this impassioned and largely sincere political action had also sent a small whisper in the direction of Baghdad, which reverberated in the halls of Hussein's palaces and reached his attentive ear: The people of the world are not willing to go all the way to disarm Iraq.
The vigorous protests on the streets of Washington, London and Madrid are heartening to Hussein. They intimate to this survivor of survivors that perhaps he has a chance, after all, to maintain his power and also his weapons of mass destruction. These protests have encouraged Hussein not to comply with and appease the demands of the international community, but instead to stand defiantly up to the international community in the belief that the bluff of military action is just that. Hussein has made a daring choice in an imperceptibly subtle manner and has maneuvered the world into vindicating his regime's continued possession of its last stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction.
And now, instead of a choice for Hussein, as President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair have been stressing for months, the choice is up to the world, and mostly to the United States. With the ever-building pressure of the well-intentioned anti-war movement upon the governments of the world, the United States and Britain have reluctantly admitted to themselves that their bluff has failed. Because of the political maneuvering of France and Germany and Russia, they have been faced with the terrible scenario of unilateral war because the initial option -- peaceful disarmament enforced by military threat -- has been compromised by misinformed "opposition to war" around the globe.
Why has America and its allies finally chosen this path? Because the alternative is decidedly worse. Had the United States decided to appease the "anti-war" camp and withdraws or even holds off its military for very long, it and the United Nations will have lost critical credibility throughout the world.
A deferral of this kind to the appeasing, reluctant members of the world community would undoubtedly encourage other belligerent regimes that threaten world peace -- North Korea, Iran, Syria and Libya -- to defy the United Nations and would further weaken the integral place that the United Nations and North Atlantic Treaty Organization, led by America, hold in the world as an arbiter of inflammatory conflicts such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the turmoil in the Balkans.
The now-apparent choice of the United States, invasion, is perhaps more unsavory in its immediate consequences. Thousands of innocent civilians will undoubtedly die; U.S. troops will also suffer losses, and families all over the globe will grieve. The Kurds will face the possible invasion of Turkish troops, and Israel and Kuwait will be in danger of SCUD missile attacks that may be more destructive than the attacks during the first Gulf War. Some predict an increase of terrorist attacks by Islamic Fundamentalists upon Western targets.
But in the final analysis, the preponderance and credibility of the United States will have been preserved. Nations throughout the world will have no question in their minds that the United States is a nation that takes its commitments seriously. And this, ultimately, is the most important factor in ensuring the capacity of the United States to mediate regional conflicts around the globe, and in guaranteeing the security of America in the years to come.
(Ilan Gutherz is a Cavalier Daily viewpoint writer.)
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