US Troop Deployment Stops and Then Reverses: The deployment process that is currently under way would probably be put on hold for the time being. Putting additional troops in the vicinity of Iraq when they aren’t going to be used in the near future is counter-productive. It makes it more difficult to deploy them anywhere else in the event of an emergency somewhere else in the world. It makes them more vulnerable to terrorism and inevitably stirs up resentment in the host countries. There is also the problem of where to put more US troops. An astonishingly large part of Kuwait is currently filled with US troops and actually off-limits to Kuwaiti civilians. That’s tolerable in an emergency situation, but not something that can go on for months. Chances are that at least some of the troops currently in the area will trickle home if they aren’t going to be used in the near future. Reserve and National Guard troops essential for the buildup signed up for use in emergency situations, not to sit in the desert sun through a hot, idle desert summer. They’ll do it if necessary, but chances are they won’t be asked to. The cost in terms of morale and eventually reenlistments would be too high. The US can’t easily afford to keep four aircraft carriers within striking distance of Iraq indefinitely either. Eventually those carriers will need to come home for maintenance and the home visits so crucial to crew morale.

The Inspection Process Rendered Even More Toothless: The Inspection Process is probably getting about as much Iraqi cooperation as it is ever going to get. What we’ve seen in the last two months is how much the Iraqis are willing to cooperate with inspectors in order to prevent an imminent US invasion. Not entirely satisfied with that level of cooperation? Wait a few months until spring flooding and then blistering summer heat makes an invasion less likely. At that point, what happens if the inspectors actually get close to something that the Iraqis want to hold on to? In the old inspection process there were times when inspectors got to close to something and ended up with Iraqi automatic weapons pointed at them. That probably won’t happen as long as there is a credible threat of immediate US invasion. It almost certainly will happen if the threat of imminent invasion becomes less credible—which it inevitably will after late March or early April at the latest.

US Allies Demoralized: Several countries and leaders have gone out on a limb to support the US in getting rid of Hussein. They’ll pay a price if the US postpones or cancels that invasion. Kuwait will face increased attempts and intimidation and terrorism. Turkey will pay an economic price as the Iraqis punish them for accepting US troops by diverting part of the trade between the two countries. All over the world, friends of the US will be less willing to help if we stand down now and then need to go after Hussein in the future.

North Korean Nukes Meet Iraqi Oil Money: North Korea almost certainly has or will soon have one or two nuclear weapons. In six months or less it will probably have half a dozen or more. At some point in the next year or so, with the North Korean economy crumbling and North Korean civilians starving, some of those nuclear weapons will almost certainly be for sale, as North Korean ballistic missiles already are. If Saddam Hussein is still in power at that point, he will be a customer. He won’t be the only customer, and somehow the North Korean situation does need to be dealt with, whether or not Hussein is still around. The North Korean nuclear program does put a time-limit of months, and not very many months on the possibility of removing Saddam Hussein without the risk of having our troops face nuclear weapons if they do go after him.

Iraqi Opposition Let Down Again: Saddam Hussein has plenty of enemies inside of Iraq. After the Gulf War he came very close to losing control of the southern Shia part of Iraq as well as the northern Kurdish part of it. There are plenty of people in Iraq who would be willing to fight against Hussein if they thought they had a chance to overthrow him. The problem is that the Iraqi opposition doesn’t trust us. They revolted after the Gulf War and didn’t get the US help that they expected. Various US mistakes during the mid-1990s confirmed their skepticism about US resolve to get rid of Hussein. It has taken a lot to convince them that we’re serious this time. If we walk away again, chances are that we’ll have a lot fewer Iraqi allies if we ever do need to go against Hussein.

Hussein Triumphant: Saddam Hussein’s propaganda apparatus is very good at turning the reality of defeat into an illusion of victory. For example, who won the Gulf War? Iraq, of course, at least according to Iraqi propaganda. What happens when that apparatus gets a real triumph—Iraq facing down a US-led invasion? Hussein’s rule would become more secure. A lot of the reason for the very public buildup of US forces around Iraq has been a kind of psychological warfare. The US wants high and middle level officials in the Iraqi government and army to be thinking about their personal future in a post-Hussein Iraq. If Hussein is able to dodge the bullet again, subordinates who are now trying to figure out their place in a post-Hussein Iraq may decide that he is there to stay, making ousting him much harder is we have to do it later. More dangerously, a triumphant Hussein is likely to overplay his hand as he did when he invaded Iran in 1980 and started a ten-year war, or when he invaded Kuwait and brought on the Gulf War. Hussein is not a cautious calculating man, and he isn’t surrounded by people capable of restraining his more reckless impulses. He is a gambler who has repeatedly shown remarkably poor judgment.

Bio-Weapons Without Fingerprints: At about the same time the hijackers were crashing passenger planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, someone asked a question that is absolutely vital to our future as a civilized country. When someone mailed Anthrax to US congressional and media leaders around September 11, they asked, “What would the US do if someone attacked it with biological weapons and the US can’t figure out for sure who did it?” That question has been hanging in the air for over a year now. The best answer would be to find out beyond any reasonable doubt who did it and bring them to trial—or bring down the regime of any country behind the attack. We apparently haven’t found that kind of proof yet. In the absence of that proof, what do we do? Nothing? That answers the question, but it invites additional attacks. For the last year, the Bush Administration has been hinting at a different answer to that question. That answer goes something like this: “If someone hits us with bio-weapons you really don’t want to be the head of an anti-American regime that has been playing with bio-weapons, because we will take you down.” That may or may not be justice, but at least it will probably make rogue states think twice about slipping Anthrax to some terrorist group with a deniable connection or a tactical alliance with that rogue state.

If the Bush Administration backs off from attacking Iraq, that bit of deterrence goes away. If the US does attack Iraq there are no guarantees, but the threat of war crimes trials should deter Saddam’s subordinates from slipping those kinds of weapons to terrorists in support of a dying regime, and they are unlikely to let those weapons loose before an attack for fear of making that attack inevitable.

So, would the path we probably won’t take lead to a more peaceful world? Peace is a worthy goal, but it needs to be pursued intelligently. If it isn’t, pursuing peace could easily lead to a triumphant, more entrenched, nuclear-armed Saddam Hussein ready to gamble and overplay his hand once again. It could lead to a world where people throughout the US and Europe are afraid to open their mail or go to a mall or a concert, not just for a month or two but for the rest of their lives as bio-terrorism becomes just another fact of our lives and the lives of our children.

Submitted by, Samantha