Defusing the Charge of 'Appeasement' : Gulf War: Nothing the U.S. said--or didn't say--could have altered Saddam Hussein's self-deluded course; it was the Arabs he misjudged.

Defusing the Charge of ‘Appeasement’ : Gulf War: Nothing the U.S. said--or didn’t say--could have altered Saddam Hussein’s self-deluded course; it was the Arabs he misjudged.

By SHIBLEY TELHAMI

March 22, 1991 12 AM PT

<i> Shibley Telhami, an associate professor of government at Cornell University, served as an adviser to America's U.N. delegation during the Gulf crisis. He is the author of "Power and Leadership in International Bargaining: the Path to the Camp David Accords" (Columbia, 1990). </i>

Ambassador April Glaspie’s testimony before Senate and House committees this week, in which she chronicled prewar U.S. policy toward Iraq, should curb the growing temptation in Washington to use the Gulf War to score political points. There has been a swell of commentary from both sides of the aisle, one trying on the campaign slogan of “Who lost Kuwait?” and the other asking “Who voted against using force to liberate Kuwait?” This is unfortunate, especially since both themes rest on faulty assumptions.

One persistent assumption is that U.S. “appeasement” of Iraq before the war gave Saddam Hussein the impression that he could pursue his ambitions in the Gulf without U.S. intervention. This view is wrong. The Iraqi leader expected a strong American reaction all along; where he miscalculated was in the reaction of the Arab world that he had labored to attract during the previous year. Nothing the United States could have done would have changed his designs for Kuwait; in fact, confronting Hussein before the invasion would have made it extremely difficult for the United States to rally Arab and international support.

Much of Saddam Hussein’s rhetoric before the war indicated that he believed Washington would have a free hand in the Middle East as a consequence of the Cold War’s ending and the perceived weakening of the Soviet Union. In a February, 1990, speech in Jordan, Hussein warned his fellow Arabs that America “has emerged in a superior position in international politics . . . and will continue to depart from the restrictions that govern the rest of the world throughout the next five years until new forces of balance are formed.”

Recent statements by King Hussein of Jordan confirm that Saddam Hussein expected a strong U.S. response concerning Kuwait. And in an interview with CNN, the Iraqi leader seemed puzzled by a reporter’s suggestion that his last conversation with Ambassador Glaspie could have influenced his decision to annex Kuwait.

Clearly, Saddam Hussein miscalculated. But his surprise--perhaps even the surprise of American officials--was in Arab reaction to the Iraqi invasion: the Saudis’ acceptance of the massive presence of foreign troops, and the Egyptian and Syrian willingness to join the United States in confronting an Arab state.

Iraq’s strategy for the past year was designed to prevent Arab defection. As long as the Arabs did not cooperate with the United States, Saddam Hussein reasoned, American intervention would fail. So he labored hard for months before Aug. 2 to win the Arab “street,” exploit regional despair and tap into rising anti-Americanism as Arab-Israeli peace prospects diminished and Arab governments appeared helpless to break the deadlock. His masterly handling of the Arab summit last May boosted his stature, as did his talk of Iraq’s missile and chemical capabilities, his threats to Israel and his sudden championing of the Palestinian cause.

It is therefore highly doubtful that mere American warnings would have changed President Hussein’s mind last summer. Nor would American public opinion have permitted credible U.S. military maneuvers in the absence of explicit Iraqi acts of aggression. Even worse, had the United States moved militarily to prevent the invasion of Kuwait, the conflict would have become an American-Iraqi one; such a conflict would have helped Saddam Hussein to mobilize Arab masses, making it difficult for Arab states and others to move against him. Before the invasion, even leaders of Egypt and Saudi Arabia were urging the United States to go easy on Iraq; the prevailing regional perception was not that the United States was appeasing Iraq but that it was targeting Iraq on behalf of Israel. The entire issue of “appeasement” should therefore be put to rest.

On the other side of the political aisle, the post-facto popularity of the Gulf War is being used against members of Congress who were reluctant to support it, as if their views were substantially at odds with those of the American people. Yet American public opinion was mixed before the war, and congressional sentiments were not far off from those of the public. Congressional views shifted to support the war, as did public opinion, as soon as the majority view prevailed and the President initiated military action--before anyone could be sure that the war would be quick, with minimal American losses.

It would be a tragic mistake to turn into political campaign fodder what many considered one of the most serious and eloquent debates that Congress has witnessed in many years. Both sides should be looking forward, not backward, to debate the more difficult task of winning the battle for peace, before another major crisis preempts American policy yet again.