Priority to Palestine
By shifting attention from Iraq to Palestine, can war be averted? asks Mohamed Sid-Ahmed
The United States is accusing Iraq of being 'in material breach' of Security Council resolutions and, according to Colin Powell, "well on its way to losing the last chance" for avoiding war. In one of the toughest warnings to Saddam Hussein since United Nations inspectors arrived in Baghdad to search for evidence of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, the US secretary of state said Iraq "needed to comply on disclosure within weeks rather than months." The US has always asserted that it has the right to decide whether Iraq is violating the provisions of Security Council Resolution 1441, whatever the opinion of the Security Council itself and, consequently, is free to act as it sees fit.
However, the American administration has decided not to take immediate action, possibly because its assessment of what constitutes material breach is not shared by its main ally, the UK. This is an important new development that needs to be looked into carefully.
Speaking after a meeting with the chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix, Britain's UN representative Jeremy Greenstone said that an inaccurate statement presented by Iraq on its weapons of mass destruction is not considered a 'material breach' of the resolution, which Article 5 of the resolution defines as a "refusal to cooperate with the UN inspectors". "We must be true to the exact wording of the resolution," added Greenstone.
A number of other factors may also have figured in Washington's decision to delay taking military action against Iraq. For a start, there is no hard evidence to corroborate the claim that the 12,200-page report is "full of inaccuracies and omissions". Among the charges levelled at the report is that it failed to account for a stockpile of anthrax Iraq is believed to have had in its possession at the time the inspectors were expelled in 1998. But to assert that Iraq failed to destroy the alleged stockpile does not constitute proof of the existence of such a stockpile in the first place. This is an important distinction that can make or break Bush's claim that war with Iraq is unavoidable.
Another obstacle preventing the immediate outbreak of war is the complicated logistics of moving sufficient troops to the region. Powell has often repeated that any military campaign will have to be short and swift, which requires a massive deployment of troops -- a strategy which was successfully applied by Powell himself during the 1991 Gulf War. But the forces needed to implement this strategy, roughly double the number already in place, have not all reached their positions in the Middle East yet.
When the UN inspectors began their mission, it was assumed that three scenarios were possible. In the first scenario, they would fail to find any banned weapons, thereby removing any justification for war; in the second, they would catch Iraq red-handed with stockpiles of banned weapons, in which case war would immediately break out; in the third, they would be unable to come up with conclusive proof either way, that is, they would find evidence sufficient to suggest that Iraq still possesses weapons of mass destruction but not sufficient to convince international public opinion that their findings justify a war that is expected to cost hundreds of billions of dollars.
But the US reaction to the report presented by Saddam has reduced these three scenarios to one. While the inspectors still assert that the sites inspected so far have revealed a situation closer to scenario one than to any other, the US is dealing with the situation as though it were closer to scenario two. This would apply all the more if the mission of the inspectors ends up inconclusively, as contemplated in the third scenario.
Thus the more likely scenarios are not the three previously mentioned ones, but two different scenarios that would not constitute different alternatives, but rather successive moments in a process. The more distant of the two in time is the war scenario, even though preparations for this scenario are running full speed ahead. In fact, it is the escalation of these preparations that is designed to bring about the second scenario, which is to generate the feeling among officers within Iraq's military that sacrificing Saddam is a lesser evil than exposing the country to widespread destruction, thus bringing about a situation which would encourage the removal of Saddam by means of a coup.
Bush might well be banking on the idea of an implosion of the Saddam regime, its collapse from within. This has been suggested by the American press. According to The New York Times, "Tough talk from Mr Powell and disclosures of troop plans were all part of a calculated move to increase pressure on Mr Hussein, as well as on dissidents who might cooperate with weapons inspectors or even on those who might be willing to oust him." The paper quoted Powell as saying that "The pressure is going to be built up even more, until Iraq fully cooperates with the inspectors." The clear message that comes across from Powell's unusually belligerent remarks is that no cooperation with Iraq is conceivable until Saddam has been overthrown.
But even as the clouds of war gather over the region, every effort must be made to come forward with possible peace scenarios, that is, with ways of breaking the present deadlock on Iraq through negotiations, not military force. The logic of negotiated settlements must extend to cover other critical flash points in the region, notably, of course, the Palestinian problem. Recently an important step in that direction was taken by British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who has invited Palestinian ministers, as well as representatives from Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan, to London in January for a conference on Palestinian reforms. The conference is expected to convene before the all-important date of 27 January, when Hans Blix will submit his final report on the findings of the UN inspectors.
Speaking at a Labour Party conference, the British prime minister committed his government to trying to revive final-status negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. In his address, Blair also said the obligation to observe United Nations resolutions applies to Israel "as much as it does to Iraq". For the first time, the British position is not identical to the American, whether as regards linking the two issues, declaring that Iraq's report on its weapons programmes cannot be considered a material breach or the priority it gives to the Palestinian problem.
Blair's speech, in which he also said he supported a viable Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders alongside a secure and recognised Israeli state, has been sharply criticised by Israeli Foreign Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. The proposed London conference on Palestinian reforms would be futile, he said, as long as Arafat (who has not been invited to attend) is leader of the Palestinian Authority. Netanyahu also criticised Blair for inviting Bashar Al-Assad to London earlier this month because "to invite the leader of a terrorist state... sends a message that terror pays!"
In September, Arafat scheduled the first Palestinian general elections since 1996 for 20 January, 2003, but earlier this month said the elections would have to be postponed until Israeli forces withdrew from the Palestinian cities and territories they reoccupied in recent months. All in all, the second half of January promises to be a decisive period, a point of convergence for a number of important events. The question is which of two projects will come to fruition first: a war in Iraq or peace talks in Palestine?
Much will depend on the upcoming talks in London, which will run parallel with the efforts of the Quartet (the US, the EU, the UN and Russia) to draw up a roadmap for peace in the region and lay the groundwork for a Palestinian state. Israel is not expected to attend the talks and has asked the US to delay adoption of the roadmap until after the Israeli elections on 28 January. In the best of cases, the talks will reflect a genuine attempt to shift the focus from war to peace by striving to find peaceful solutions for both the Palestinian and Iraqi problems, not for one at the expense of the other. In the worst of cases, they will serve as a distraction, lulling us into a false sense of security even as preparations for an invasion of Iraq continue unabated. It is to be hoped that reason will prevail and a ruinous war averted.
