The job of containing Saddam, or overthrowing him, should fall to the regional powers most directly threatened by Iraq. The United States should take no action to break the UN embargo of Iraq, but neither should it help to enforce that measure. We have not had such a comprehensive evaluation of aims and capabilities since the original Great Debate in 1950-51 concerning the U.S. troop commitment to NATO, during the initial years of the cold war. Even the Vietnam debacle did not produce the kind of searching policy reassessment that might have been expected and was badly needed. It is exceedingly difficult for the United States to prevail in war unless the conflict is supported by Congress and the American people.
Wars are easy to start but often difficult to end.
In its historic 1966 hearings, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee asked the right questions about U.S. policy in Vietnam. But it was too late to halt the march of folly in Southeast Asia, because vast numbers of American troops had already been committed to combat. It is impera- tive that Congress not make that mistake again. The consequences of such centralized decisionmaking were expressed well by Secretary of Defense Caspar Wein- berger in 1984. Maybe one, maybe five men in the Kremlin.