Bush outwits naysayers at the U.N.
What accounts for this dramatic success? George W. Bush re-framed the debate on Iraq, which had previously been viewed as a bilateral conflict of interests between Baghdad and Washington, as a conflict between Baghdad and the world. Iraq, Bush noted, is in obvious violation of some 16 U.N. Security Council resolutions. Saddam has supported international terrorism with $25,000 payments to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers. He has continued to persecute ethnic and religious minorities within Iraq. Most significantly, Saddam has refused unfettered access to weapons inspectors, and indeed expelled them in 1998.
Faced with such defiance, Bush cogently argued, the U.N. now faces a "defining" moment. It can enforce its decrees, or it can slide towards future "irrelevance." Don't be fooled by the argument that Israel or the United States are similarly in violation of U.N. resolutions. Neither has broached a binding Security Council resolution, only symbolic General Assembly resolutions. Moreover, the resolutions that Saddam defies took the forms of treaties that he signed at the end of the Gulf War, giving them the full weight of international law.
Cautious Europeans were the first to react positively to Bush's remarks. Norway's prime minister praised it as "multilateral," an adjective scarcely applied to American foreign policy by European statesmen. Moscow, which recently unveiled a $40 billion economic cooperation initiative with Baghdad, voiced its support for a Security Council resolution authorizing member states to take action against Iraq if it fails to bring itself into compliance. The Prime Minister of Denmark argued that no new U.N. authorization of force was needed, since Saddam's defiance of preexisting U.N. resolutions was a sufficient causus belli. Even the French seemed to be warming up to war on Iraq.
Over the weekend, events took a turn for the surreal. Egypt called on Iraq to readmit weapons inspectors. The Arab League met and issued a formal resolution calling for the same. Finally on Monday, Saudi Arabia, which had previously declared an attack on Iraq to be an attack on all Arab states, conceded that if a U.N. resolution authorized force, it would allow the United States to use its military bases on Saudi territory as a staging point for action against Iraq. That evening, Saddam, apparently unable to take the heat of George W. Bush's kitchen, devised a way out, agreeing to the return of weapons inspectors.
Many commentators have spun this most recent development as a setback for Bush, as it undermined the considerable momentum towards war. But preparation for war continues as the United States relocates aircraft, tanks, troops, and officers daily to friendly Gulf States such as Kuwait and Qatar. This time around, Saddam will have scarce wiggle room. If he moves to encumber or deceive the inspections regime in any way, the United States will be ready to drive him from power almost instantly.
I have no doubt that many will continue to deride as a gaffe-prone idiot the man who shifted world opinion on war vs peace in the Middle East with a single 25 minute speech. I am sure that leftists everywhere will persist in branding a unilateralist cowboy the one world leader who has sought the initiative to actually enforce the international rule of law. But Bush's opponents abroad are beginning to learn the bitter lesson absorbed by his domestic foes after countless political battles: most everyone finds it easy to poke fun at George W. Bush, but he always seems to have the last laugh.