February 05, 2003

The Ultimate Penultimatum Mark Steyn,

The Ultimate Penultimatum

Mark Steyn, in a brief guest spot on NRO, sums up Powell's UN speech:

It's perfectly obvious from Colin Powell's presentation what's going on. Ten minutes before the flatfoots show up, the bootleg liquor is whisked away, replaced by teacups and the gaming table gets dropped through the trapdoor and replaced by an ornamental fountain. If you think Saddam Hussein is a lovable rogue � as Mr. Chirac does � this is all part of a grand ongoing comedy, to which the French and Russians made their own exquisite contribution by proposing to strengthen the monitoring regime by doubling the number of inspectors, etc., etc., etc., ad infinitum. If the Powell evidence made anything plain, it's this: The idea of "monitoring" a dictator is ludicrous. Saddam is quite happy to participate for another decade or two in an eternal ongoing U.N. field study of dictatorship.

Right. I listened to Powell's speech on NPR this morning, and I was surprised at the sheer bulk of it: since it seems pretty clear that, for good or ill, the Bush administration is still intending to stall for a bit longer, I had been expecting a lot more tough talk about weak measures, a lot less detail. It seemed persuasive to me, but I was persuaded long ago. While listening, I tried to imagine how I would have reacted to the speech if I were undecided as to whether the facts bear out the Anglo-American contention that Saddam Hussein is dangerous enough to warrant intervention through military action. The thought experiment was a failure. I guess I don't have a first-class imagination after all. Despite my East Bay background, I'm not much of a European.

Unless you believe, as the Iraqis maintain in their response, that the whole thing is a US fabrication from top to bottom (and everyone knows it isn't), the danger is difficult to deny. I can't imagine that anyone could truly believe that any kind of arms inspections program could, in and of itself, provide adequate protection from this danger. (Triple the number of inspectors? That ought to take care of it.) I can't imagine what it would be like to worry enough about Saddam Hussein to desire that he be deprived of his worst weaponry, but not enough to insist upon it in any serious way.

I thought the speech was good. I don't think it will change any minds. But it may provide some face-saving cover for those countries which will, of necessity, belatedly endorse the inevitable Anglo-American attack, when it finally materializes or appears imminent. In the meantime, why shouldn't they propose doubling, tripling, quadrupling the number of inspectors or strike a series of crowd-pleasing pseudo-pacifist poses? It doesn't cost them anything. There's still time for posturing, grandstanding, obstructionism, all the tools of the diplomatic trade, before things get really serious. As Iraqi "Presidential advisor" Amir al-Saadi said today, "what's the hurry?" The US needs to indicate that the last last chance really was the last chance, that the current "final stage" isn't merely a preliminary to a "final phase," which will be followed by a "final stretch," etc. For some reason, Powell's speech notwithstanding, we're not there yet.

Posted by Dr. Frank at February 5, 2003 04:19 PM | TrackBack