The Washington Post
Monday, August 12, 2002

*How a preemptive war could lead to a new international order.*

Henry A. Kissinger

# Our Intervention In Iraq

As the anniversary of the attack on the World Trade Center draws near, the administration is facing the most consequential foreign policy decision of the Bush presidency. The president and Secretary of State Colin Powell repeatedly have stated that the United States insists on a regime change in Iraq. In an eloquent address in June at West Point, President Bush stressed that new weapons of mass destruction no longer permit America the luxury of waiting for an attack, that we must "be ready for preemptive action when necessary to defend our liberty."

At the same time, the administration's formal position is that no decision to resort to force has been taken. Ambiguity can help create awareness without encumbering the discussion with the need for decision. But when ambiguity reaches the point of inviting leaks concerning military planning, congressional debate and allied pressures, the time has come to define a comprehensive policy for America and for the rest of the world.

The new approach is revolutionary. Regime change as a goal for military intervention challenges the international system established by the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia, which, after the carnage of the religious wars, established the principle of nonintervention in the domestic affairs of other states. And the notion of justified preemption runs counter to modern international law, which sanctions the use of force in self-defense only against actual, not potential, threats.

Therefore, American military intervention in Iraq would be supported only grudgingly, if at all, by most European allies. The Middle East would be split into an inarticulate group, which would be weighing relief from radical pressures authored by Baghdad against the rising dangers from the local Arab street and radical Islamists. As for other nations, Russia would balance the blow to Arab radicalism against its economic stake in Iraq and the benefits of American goodwill against its fear of being marginalized. China would view preemptive action in terms of its reluctance to justify intervention in its own country against its desire for a cooperative relationship with the United States during a period of political succession and integration into the world economy. The most interesting and potentially fateful reaction might well be that of India, which would be tempted to apply the new principle of preemption to Pakistan.

To find our way through this thicket, the administration needs to establish a comprehensive strategy for itself and a clear policy for the rest of the world. Nor can a conflict of such import be sustained as an expression of executive power alone. A way must be found to obtain adequate congressional and public support for the chosen course.

The administration should be prepared to undertake a national debate, because the case for removing Iraq's capacity of mass destruction is extremely strong. The international regimen following the Treaty of Westphalia was based on the concept of an impermeable nation-state and a limited military technology which generally permitted a nation to run the risk of awaiting an unambiguous challenge.

But the terrorist threat transcends the nation-state; it derives in large part from transnational groups that, if they acquire weapons of mass destruction, could inflict catastrophic, even irretrievable, damage. That threat is compounded when these weapons are being built in violation of U.N. resolutions by a ruthless autocrat who sought to annex one of his neighbors and attacked another, with a demonstrated record of hostility toward America and the existing international system. The case is all the stronger because Saddam Hussein expelled U.N. inspectors installed as part of the settlement of the Gulf War and has used these weapons both against his own population and against a foreign adversary.

This is why policies that deterred the Soviet Union for 50 years are unlikely to work against Iraq's capacity to cooperate with terrorist groups. Suicide bombing has shown that the calculations of jihadist fighters are not those of the Cold War principals. And the terrorists have no national base to protect. Therefore, the concern that war with Iraq could unleash Iraqi weapons of mass destruction on Israel and Saudi Arabia is a demonstration of self-deterrence. If the danger exists today, waiting will only magnify possibilities for blackmail.

There is another, generally unstated, reason for bringing matters to a head with Iraq. The attack on the World Trade Center had roots in many parts of the Islamic, and especially the Arab, world. It would not have been possible but for the tacit cooperation of societies that, in the words of George W. Bush, "oppose terror but tolerate the hatred that produces terror." While long-range U.S. strategy must try to overcome legitimate causes of those resentments, immediate policy must demonstrate that a terrorist challenge or a systemic attack on the international order produces catastrophic consequences for the perpetrators, as well as for their supporters, tacit or explicit.

The campaign in Afghanistan was an important first step. But if it remains the principal move in the war against terrorism, it runs the risk of petering out into an intelligence operation while the rest of the region gradually slides back to the pre-9/11 pattern, with radicals encouraged by the demonstration of American hesitation and moderates demoralized by the continuation of an unimpaired Iraq as an aggressive regional power.

The overthrow of the Iraq regime and, at a minimum, the eradication of its weapons of mass destruction would have potentially beneficent political consequences, as well: The so-called Arab street might conclude that the negative consequences of jihad outweigh any potential benefits. It could encourage a new approach in Syria, strengthen moderate forces in Saudi Arabia, multiply pressures for a democratic evolution in Iran, demonstrate to the Palestinian Authority that America is serious about overcoming corrupt tyrannies and bring about a better balance in oil policy within OPEC.

America's special responsibility, as the most powerful nation in the world, is to work toward an international system that rests on more than military power—indeed, that strives to translate power into cooperation. Any other attitude gradually will isolate and exhaust us. Even when, on issues of ultimate national security such as Iraq, America acts alone, it is in our national interest to couple

BY PAUL LACHINE

(over)

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such action with a program of postwar reconstruc-
tion, conveying to the rest of the world that our
first preemptive war has been imposed by necessi-
ty and that we seek the world's interests, not ex-
clusively our own.

**F**or this reason, the objective of regime change should be subordinated in American declaratory policy to the need to eliminate weapons of mass destruction from Iraq as required by the U.N. resolutions. The restoration of the inspection system existing before its expulsion by Hussein is clearly inadequate. It is necessary to propose a stringent inspection system that achieves substantial transparency of Iraqi institutions. A time limit should be set. The case for military intervention then will have been made in the context of seeking a common approach.

At that point, too, America's allies will be
obliged to face the choice they have thus far evad-
ed: between their domestic opposition and es-
trangement from the United States. Dissociation
from U.S. actions will not save the allies from the
consequences of abdication in a world of terrorism
and weapons of mass destruction.

Attention must be paid to the political and psy-
chological framework vis-a-vis the Arab world. An
explanation is needed of why Iraqi weapons of
mass destruction impede the solution to all mat-
ters of concern in the area—not in Western cate-
gories of security, but in terms relevant to upheav-
als in the region. This is why military pressure
must be coupled with a program of economic and
social reconstruction in which allies and moderate
Arab regimes should be invited to participate. At
the same time, the administration should reject
the idea that an Iraqi intervention ought to be pre-
ceded by a solution of the Palestine issue. It is not
true that the road to Baghdad leads through Jeru-
salem. More likely, the road to Jerusalem will lead
through Baghdad. The president has committed
his administration to a three-year program for the
creation of a Palestinian state. He has left no doubt
about his determination to bring progress on this
timetable. But the timetable should not be used to
defer decisions that cannot wait.

If war should prove unavoidable, it will not be a time for experiments. The longer military operations last, the greater the danger of upheavals in the region, dissociation by other nations and American isolation. In all probability, Iraq is much weaker and America orders of magnitude stronger than in the Gulf War of 1991. But planning should be based on the visible availability of an overwhelming force capable of dealing with all contingencies, and not on the expectation of a quick Iraqi collapse. Principal reliance on air power and local indigenous opposition forces is too dangerous, for it leaves no margin for error or miscalculation. And it might place these local forces in a predominant political position, foreclosing other political options. A conspicuous American deployment in the region is therefore necessary to support the diplomacy to destroy weapons of mass destruction and provide a margin for quick victory if military action proves the only recourse. It might also serve to motivate Iraqi leaders considering the overthrow of Hussein.

In the end, however, Iraq policy will be judged
by how the aftermath of military operations is han-
dled politically. Because of the precedent-setting
nature of this war, its outcome will determine the
way U.S. actions will be viewed far more than the
way we entered it. And we may find more nations
willing to cooperate in reconstruction than in war-
fare, if only because no country wants to see an ex-
clusive position for America in a region so central
to energy supplies and international stability.

Military intervention will confront the United
States with the question of how to preserve the
unity and ensure the territorial integrity of a coun-
try that is an essential component of any gulf equi-
librium. The conventional answer of a federal solu-
tion to enable the Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish ethnic
groups of Iraq to live together without domination
by one of them is surely appropriate. But any seri-
ous planning would have to consider the means to
prevent autonomy from turning to independence,
which, in the case of the Kurds, would put Turkish
support for the military phase at risk. And all this
would have to take place in the context of a gov-
ernment with participants capable of resisting
pressures from the remnants of the old regime or
from neighboring countries determined to desta-
bilize the emerging system.

Military intervention should be attempted only if we are willing to sustain such an effort for however long it is needed. For in the end, the task is to translate intervention in Iraq into terms of general applicability for an international system. The imminence of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, the huge dangers it involves, the rejection of a viable inspection system and the demonstrated hostility of Hussein combine to produce an imperative for preemptive action. But it is not in the American national interest to establish preemption as a universal principle available to every nation. And we are only at the beginning of the threat of global proliferation. Whatever the views regarding Iraq, the nations of the world must face the impossibility of letting such a process run unchecked. The United States would contribute much to a new international order if it invited the rest of the world, and especially the major nuclear powers, to cooperate in creating a system to deal with this challenge to humanity on a more institutional basis.

*The writer, a former secretary of state, is president of Kissinger Associates, an international consulting firm.*

© 2002, Los Angeles Times Syndicate International