In the initial phase, it is not necessary for the administration to do anything to respond directly to Iraq’s proposal. President Bush can afford to wait for Saddam’s next move, which will probably be somehow to separate his conditions from his offer of withdrawal. The process may be somewhat like this: President Gorbachev, or a combination of Arab leaders sympathetic to Baghdad (like the Algerians) could take responsibility for pursuing Iraq’s conditions in the aftermath of a withdrawal. Saddam then would affirm that he is prepared to withdraw based on those assurances. And we will be able to say - and mean - that we are not bound by what these other parties proclaim on their own.
While the United States is waiting for some process separating the issues to unfold, it would be helpful if we spelled out publicly what we mean by withdrawal - lest Saddam in the end use a prolonged pullout to salvage success. We must not be caught in a situation where Saddam announces a “complete withdrawal” that extends so long as to enhance his bargaining position and allow him to try to split the alliance by accusing us of raising new terms.
Our definition of withdrawal should include these elements:
Saddam must agree to a timetable so short he cannot regroup his forces while ostensibly withdrawing - no more than 96 hours.
The first stage of the withdrawal must be so significant that it is in effect irreversible.
Iraq’s forces should be pulled back far enough from Kuwait’s borders so that they cannot continue to overhang its independence. Although that distance is for the military to judge, it should probably be at least 30 miles.
Economic sanctions should be maintained until other conditions are met, such as reparations, removal of mines and the implementation of a U.N. inspection system.
There should be no cease-fire until Saddam has begun his withdrawal. Then we should be prepared to declare a 12-hour cease-fire on the hour specified for withdrawal, to see whether it is being carried out. We should not announce that we are holding off on a ground offensive, because that would give him another incentive to prolong the negotiations. And once a ground war starts, we cannot permit a cease-fire in place. Then the allies cannot stop until their objective is achieved.
The lesson of the Korean and Vietnamese wars is that it is disastrous to suspend military operations while terms of a cease-fire are being discussed. Military pressure created the incentive for cease-fires; once that element was removed, the opponent had the opposite incentive: to protract the process in order to exploit war-weariness in the U.S. It is crucial for the prospects of a creative postwar policy that Saddam cannot claim any success. Saving his face mortgages the peace.
After the Middle East war of 1973, some Arab countries learned that confrontation with the U.S. did not advance their objectives. Thus the peace initiative started afterward with the moderate Arabs produced a series of agreements, including the Israeli-Egyptian peace accord. In this case, the Arab leaders associated with us should be encouraged to take the lead in any development process, as well in other areas, including the Arab-Israeli issue. Under no circumstances should an Iraqi withdrawal be linked to reconstruction aid, which would be interpreted as reparations, or to a U.S. withdrawal, which would establish a false equivalence between aggression and resistance. There must be no ambiguity about which side won.
If the terms outlined here are met, the allies will be able to claim success even if Saddam is left in power. I would prefer for Saddam to be overthrown, but I do not see how we can risk lives and the cohesion of the coalition to achieve an objective that was never stated. Saddam’s future would then be left to the ruling group in Iraq. He will have lost at least a third of his army and all his long-range offensive power in taking Kuwait, only to abandon it - this following an eight-year war with Iran in which he lost hundreds of thousands of people and gained nothing. One has to wonder about the acuity of this leadership group if they allow Saddam to stay in power after such a string of disasters.
It would be helpful to let the Soviets know before they involve themselves further precisely what we mean by withdrawal. But we do not need the Soviets to end the war, and we should not be overly solicitous. The major requirement is to stay the course now that the end is near. The less ambiguous the outcome of the war, the more it will enhance the stature of the moderate Arab countries that cooperated in Operation Desert Storm - and the more creativity it will allow our diplomacy in solving the problems of the Middle East in the postwar period.
