Professional Note. Iraq and the Strategy of Dual Containment *

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1 Defense Analysis Vol. 15, No. 1, pp , 1999 Printed in Great Britain Defense Analysis Vol. 13, No. 3, pp , Taylor & Francis Ltd Professional Note Contributions of between 250 and 1,000 words which are concerned with defense issues of the day, new source material, interesting methodological approaches, novel interpretations of defense matters, or comment and reaction to the subject matter and content of the Journal are included in this section. None is refereed, and each submission is included at the Editor s discretion. In the manner and style of similar sections in scienti c journals, the objective is to provide a forum for quick response to current developments in defense affairs generally. Iraq and the Strategy of Dual Containment * Cattedra di Relazioni Internazionali, Istituto di Diritto e Politica Internazionale, Università degli Studi di Milano, Via Conservatorio 7, Milano, Italia I remember always working with contradictions and contradictory forms, which is my idea that in life the whole absurdity of life everything has always been opposites. Nothing has never been in the middle. I was always aware that I would take order versus chaos, stringy versus mass, huge versus small, and I would try to find the most absurd opposites or extreme opposites. Eva Hesse INTRODUCTION This Professional Note focuses on the dual containment strategy launched by the Clinton administration towards Iraq and Iran in 1993, two years after the end of the Gulf War. The purpose of dual containment was to bring down the regime in Baghdad and change the behavior of the government in Teheran. 1 By its adoption, the US intended to change the longlasting balance of power structure in the region based on the concept that Iran and Iraq could alternatively deter the one from the other. From then on, the Administration was determined to in uence both countries, since they had become more vulnerable following two devastating wars. 2 * I am particularly grateful to the Mershon Center and the Ohio State University for the valuable research support. I would like to thank Richard Ned Lebow, Mahmood Sariolghalam, Claudio Fogu, John Champlin, Richard Herrmann for their helpful comments and Colleen Beader for her wonderful impatience. The author assumes all responsibility for the contents. This paper was written while the author was Visiting Scholar at the Mershon Center, the Ohio State University, Columbus OH. 93

2 94 A GEOPOLITICAL PERSPECTIVE A comparison of data on the countries that make up the Persian Gulf region shows clear asymmetries of power. There are historic and contingent reasons: the consequences of decolonization; Cold War super-power in uence; the contrasting resources and economic development; and differing government policies. The asymmetries are in terms of size scattered versus mass, i.e. the population and size of Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, UAE and Oman compared with Saudi Arabia, Iran and Iraq; wealth huge versus small, for example, the roles inversely proportional to their size, as the percapita income of the UAE compared with that of Iran; and finally military capabilities weakness versus strength, as in the case of the wide variations in military power between the GCC states except for Saudi Arabia and Iran and Iraq. As far as military asymmetries are perceived, Kemp and Gross Stein underline that Iraq sees Iran as having built-in quantitative advantage because of its large population and its geographic position; it attempts to offset this handicap with a technological and qualitative superiority. 3 Saudi Arabia and the smaller Gulf states see Iraq as a potentially dominant power, given its quantitative capabilities, and rely on the US as guarantor or provider of a qualitative edge. 4 This perception has been rightly questioned by other authors who argue that most of the GCC states usually identify Iran as the long-term threat to their security. 5 In this context, the US has continuously tried to maintain a balance of power to prevent either Iran or Iraq taking control of the Gulf oil reserves or exercising a dominant regional in uence. In 1986, the Reagan administration decided to tilt slightly in favor of Iraq, having identi ed Iran as the major threat to the Gulf security. 6 Fear of an upset in the balance of power was the principal reason why it helped prevent Iran from winning the war with Iraq. For similar reasons the US reacted to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in After the Gulf War, the old Westphalian system of the balance of power was restored but the risk of a power vacuum in the region caused by Iraq s potential fragmentation persuaded the US, rst, to stand aside when Iraq suppressed the internal Shii and Kurd uprisings and then to help the Kurd refugees. During the February 1998 crisis with Iraq, George Bush stated in a CNN interview that, at the end of the Gulf War, he and the other UN coalition members had hoped in 1991 that Saddam Hussein would not survive Iraq s humiliating defeat. At that time, US policy had initially been ambiguous, giving only tentative support to the post-war uprisings within Iraq and later standing aside to avoid becoming involved in Iraqi internal affairs. Subsequently, the US took no further step to hasten Saddam Hussein s downfall. The restoration of the status quo ante remained the preferred outcome when compared with the potential destabilization effects of Iraqi fragmentation on other states in the Persian Gulf area. 7 As a part of a strategy of containment, the UN sanctions against Iraq brought years of suffering to the Iraqi people yet left Saddam s power intact. Although the Iraqi and the Iranian cases raise further doubts as to the effectiveness of economic sanctions, the risks of lifting them were judged by the Clinton administration to be more persuasive than over humanitarian or the economic arguments. 8

3 IRAQ AND THE STRATEGY OF DUAL CONTAINMENT 95 Despite sanctions and limited sovereignty, repeated acts of brinkmanship by the Iraqi regime called for new responses and threats from the international community. They also focused attention on Saddam Hussein s intransigence and the dif culties the US and UN were facing in their attempts to make him comply with UN Resolutions. 9 Iraq continues to remain an unresolved problem to the present day. 10 TWO CONTRADICTORY OBJECTIVES President Clinton s dual containment strategy was launched on 19th May 1993 and focused speci cally on both Iraq and Iran. Weakened by two Gulf Wars, both these countries were considered vulnerable to outside pressure either to overthrow Saddam Hussein or change the policies of the Iranian leadership. This policy was a shift from deterring one from the other to preserving the regional balance of power. Built on the concept of interdependence, the dual containment of Iran and Iraq in the East called for progress in the Arab Israeli peace process in the West. Progress in the Arab Israeli peace process could then facilitate US attempts to neutralize Iran and Iraq. 11 Five years later, its objective has not been reached; the increasing impression instead is one of an absence of an effective security architecture. Speci cally in respect of Iraq, these contradictions are closely linked with Iran; however, they demonstrate that the logic of the balance of power still dominates US strategy towards the region. US policy in the Persian Gulf has two, conflicting objectives: first, the US administration does not want the disintegration of Iraq. 12 It is, therefore, dependent on Saddam Hussein, in absence of a better substitute, to counter-balance Iran s role in the Persian Gulf and to preserve its in uence over the GCC countries through military and civil goods and services. 13 Second, at the same time, it wishes to weaken, restrain or remove Saddam Hussein. For Washington, Iran s move towards democracy since President Khatami s election in 1997 has to be handled with care. 14 This is why US foreign policy cannot afford the destabilization of the region or a breakdown in the region s balance of power. 15 The price for this would be an increased and permanent presence of the US in the Persian Gulf with all the related economical and political costs. 16 Saddam Hussein s regime assures the territorial integrity of a multi-ethnic country, one ruled by a Suni minority, of which Saddam s tribe is the ruling part. His remaining in power, together with the diffused perception of an Iranian threat allows the US to exert in uence over GCC countries through military and civil supplies. The economic and political disintegration of Iraq would generate a power vacuum in the Gulf region as a whole that could be lled by neighboring powers, such as Iran or Syria. This would then create many problems for major US allies in the region, such as Turkey and Saudi Arabia. A weakened Iraq, even though ruled by Saddam Hussein, is better than the potential instability and potential chaos that would arise throughout the whole area. The existence of a recognized enemy, a backlash state, is preferred by the US over an unknown future in which there is no guaranteed successor in a strategically important state. 17 If the US containment strategy towards Iraq has been to weaken, restrain or remove Saddam, the outcome

4 96 to date has been the opposite. President Clinton has become both its author as well as the victim. The management and the outcome of the crisis over the UN s WMD inspection has not significantly altered this scenario. DISCONTINUITY AND REGIONAL DISINTEGRATION A US policy towards the Gulf based on short-term gains has generated this contradiction and caused discontinuity and regional disintegration. The disputes and the level of distrust between the Gulf states increased over the years. 18 A regional security organization that can accommodate the interests of all the Gulf states is still missing. The GCC for example does not include Iran and Iraq and its dependence on the US is increasing. In the absence of a radical reorientation of US strategy, the Persian Gulf region will remain insecure and Iraq an unresolved problem. A reorientation of American strategy should proceed from a unilateral approach to a multilateral one, involving both Persian Gulf and European states in a wider regional security framework. A policy of co-operation rather than confrontation could restrain the proliferation of weapons into the region, gain more support for the US within Arab countries and help in the furtherance of the Arab Israeli peace process. A prerequisite would be to lift sanctions on Iraq and Iran. A strategy of punishment does not work, particularly when applied unilaterally; it only worsens the lives of the Iraqis and does not prevent the Iranians from trading with other countries than the US, Israel and the Persian Gulf states. A gradual lifting of sanctions would contribute to a return to normality within Iraq and improve the living conditions of the Iraqi people. No longer beseiged, the Iraqi people could nd the necessary conditions to decide their destiny and defend their rights against the regime. Only after a shift in policy from crisis management to change management, will US policy in the Persian Gulf restore its idealism and accelerate the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. The strategy of dual containment does not work and allows Saddam Hussein to face the UN with taghiah the Arabian art of dissembling and remain in power. 19 More than seven years after the Gulf War, it is time to work for an inclusion model of security rather than one of exclusion. 20 With the participation of all the Persian Gulf countries in a multilateral security structure, the region could look for a solution to its never-ending problems. The current American near-monopoly of both the security system and bilateral security arrangements virtually suspends normal geopolitics in the Gulf; worse, it encourages local actors to avoid dealing clearly with one another on security matters, especially those that touch the stability of ruling families. 21 A CBM (Confidence Building Measures) process should be more than an idea; it can help increase trust between the Gulf states and help prevent further armed con icts. 22 The status quo inside the GCC countries cannot last for ever; sooner or later the democratic aspirations of the populations in these essentially feudal monarchies will surface and threaten a regional implosion. 23 The US administration should take this possibility into account when giving full consideration to a reorientation of its strategy of dual containment towards the Gulf region.

5 IRAQ AND THE STRATEGY OF DUAL CONTAINMENT 97 NOTES 1. Richard K. Herrmann and R. William Ayres, The new geopolitics of the Gulf: forces for change and stability, in Gary G. Sick and Lawrence G. Potter (eds), The Persian Gulf at the Millennium. Essays in Politics, Economy, Security, and Religion, New York: St Martin s Press, 1997, p Hisham Melhem, Dual containment: the demise of a fallacy, occasional paper edited by Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, Washington DC: Edmund Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University, 1997, pp Geoffrey Kemp and Janice Gross Stein, Enduring sources of con ict in the Persian Gulf region: predicting shocks to the system, in Geoffrey Kemp and Janice Gross Stein (eds), Powder Keg in the Middle East. The Struggle for Gulf Security, for the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 1995, p Ibid., pp Phebe Marr, US GCC security relations, I: differing threat perceptions, Institute for National Strategic Studies, Strategic Forum 39, August 1995, pp See F. Gregory Gause III, who reports of the geopolitical imperative of the GCC states in the lower gulf to prevent Iraq s disintegration, which would lead to greater Iranian and Saudi power in the region. Quoted in F. Gregory Gause III, The illogic of dual containment, Foreign Affairs, 73, March/April 1994, p. 61. See also Richard N. Haas, The United States and Iraq: a strategy for the long haul, Brookings Policy Briefs, 7, October 1996, pp US Department of State, US Policy in the Persian Gulf, Special Report 166, July 1987, p Strobe Talbott, Post-victory blues, Foreign Affairs, 71, Winter 1992, p On the sanctions toward Iran, see Jahangir Amuzegar, Adjusting to sanctions, Foreign Affairs, 76, May/June This dangerous spiral is described by Roland Dannreuther, The Gulf con ict: a political and strategic analysis, Adelphi Papers, 264, Winter , p Bernard Lewis, Iraq: an unresolved problem, Relazioni Internazionali, 16, December The statement delivered by Martin Indyk, The Clinton administration s approach to the Middle East, Soref Symposium, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Washington DC, 18 May 1993, pp Ibid, p The lack of a better alternative to Saddam Hussein, which induced the Clinton administration to let Iraq stew inde nitely has been pointed out by Zbgniew Brzezinski, Brent Scowcroft and Richard Murphy, in Differentiated containment, Foreign Affairs, 76, May/June 1997, p Martin Indyk, Remarks to the Middle East Insight, College of William and Mary Conference, Williamsburg, VA, 12 November 1997, pp See also the speech delivered by Bruce O. Riedel, Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director Near East and South Asian Affairs at the National Security Council, to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy on US policy in the Gulf: ve years of dual containment, USIA, 6 May 1998, pp Zbgniew Brzezinski, Brent Scowcroft and Richard Murphy, op. cit., p According to Graham E. Fuller and Ian O. Lesser, The Pentagon pays out between $30 billion and $60 billion a year for defense of the Gulf. See Graham E. Fuller and Ian O. Lesser Persian gulf myths, Foreign Affairs, 76, May/June 1997, p Backlash state appears in Anthony Lake, Confronting backlash states, Foreign Affairs, 73, March/April 1994, pp Richard N. Scho eld, Border disputes in the Gulf: past, present, and future, in Sick and Potter, op. cit., pp Igor Man, Una fragile rma sul domani, La Stampa, 24 February The Arabic word taghiah means dissembling, concealment, and de nes twelve centuries of Shii resistance to the Suni majority. An example of taghiah is in the suggestion, accept all, really all, the American conditions, from the Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi to his Iraqi colleague, the Shii Said al Sahaf, just before the visit of Secretary Ko Annan to Baghdad on 22 February 1998 to solve the crisis over the weapons inspections in Iraq. 20. The concept of security by inclusion was formulated by former UN negotiator Giandomenico Picco. See Giandomenico Picco, Political and economic co-operative measures available to the Gulf states, paper presented to the Gulf/2000 conference on

6 98 Security issues in the Gulf, Abu Dhabi, March 1995, cited in Lawrence G. Potter, Confidence-building measures in the Persian Gulf, op. cit., pp Graham E. Fuller and Ian O. Lesser, Persian Gulf myths, op. cit., pp Lawrence G. Potter, Confidence-building measures in the Persian Gulf, op. cit., pp F. Gregory Gause III, The political economy of national security in the GCC states, in Sick and Potter, op. cit., pp