Bush's World Order is Not So New

BEWARE of George Bush's use of the word "new." The man who campaigned on a pledge of no "new" taxes and then signed onto the largest tax increase in U.S. history is at it again.

The president now says we are on the brink of war with Iraq in part to help contruct a "new" world order. A month ago, we might have believed him. Administration envoys were crisscrossing the globe, building a coalition that has left Saddam Hussein almost friendless. The coalition built its strategy on a full-scale economic embargo, which has been enforced with unprecedented success.

Then, suddenly (and immediately after a series of domestic debacles), Bush turned his back on all that "new" stuff. Declaring that his patience was wearing thin, he doubled the number of U.S. troops in the Gulf and railroaded through the United Nations Security Council a resolution authorizing the use of force.

These actions are squandering hopes for a new world order, leading us instead down a decidedly "old" path, one which Americans thought we had abandoned for good in 1975. The president is abdicating from a unique opportunity to fashion a system of collective, peaceful dispute-resolution. Instead, he has simply manipulated international goodwill to strongarm the Security Council into approving what would be essentially unilateral U.S. policework.

Some of Bush's supporters, like Senator John McCain of Arizona, do not want to hear dissent about American strategy in the Gulf. "The issue," McCain says, "its not prerogatives, it is patriotism." But if there is any lesson from Vietnam, it is that patriotism alone will not long suffice to sustain public support for war.

Outside theaters the size of Panama and Grenada, the U.S. consistantly has avoided or flubbed unilateral police action. Certainly, in the world wars, no one suggested that it should be mostly Americans who put their lives on the line. Yet, according to recent estimates, 90 percent of the casualties in a Gulf war may be American troops.

BY January, more than 400,000 American troops will be in Saudi Arabia. The Soviet Union thus far has courteously endorsed our policies in the Gulf, but Red Army troops won't be there. Support from most of our Western allies is token. China abstained from the Security Council resolution. Half of the troops Syria promised have not been sent. Egypt will fight in Kuwait but not in Iraq. Is this a new world order?

No. As Edward Luttwak of the Center for Strategic and International Studies told the Senate Arms Services Committee last week, the new world is interdependent and "geoeconomic" rather than atomistic and "geopolitical." It is a world in which military strength is devalued and economic power is paramount. In that setting, economic sanctions are the weapon of choice, especially when supported so vigorously by the international community.

The events in Eastern Europe last year vivdly demonstrated that economic privation and isolation from productive economies can bring down regimes. It was empty Soviet shelves and not American missiles that brought about the Revolutions of 1989. In the end, all the Cold War really proved was that the American economy could produce weapons and bread; the Soviet economy, only weapons.

The lesson is that sanctions against Iraq will be painful and should be enforced as long as necessary. Saddam will continue to be isolated internationally and to face a shortage of food and durable goods. He will be able to sell neither Kuwait's oil nor his own. He will lack much-needed capital to develop his economy and finance his military.

If President Bush believes in sanctions, why will he not give them time to work? If he does not believe in sanctions, why did he propose them in the first place?

Bush must not be allowed to derail the sanctions policy by using the Security Council resolution to obtain war powers from Congress. Of course the U.N. resolution passed; the signatories had little or nothing to lose.

But the U.S. has everything to lose in facing an army of one million troops, brought up on desert warfare and undeterred by eight years of devastating stalemate with Iran. Is it really worth thousands of American lives to restore Kuwait's less than palatable Sabah monarchy? To guarantee the flow of cheap oil, when we have known for years that we must develop alternative energy sources? To put a stop to one dictator's agression and atrocities, when we turn our backs on countless similar violations of human rights and international law? To appease the president's "impatience"?

Nor would war be to the U.S. geoeconomic advantage. The price of oil would skyrocket, and our productive capacities would be diverted from the critical technological challenges of the 1990's. Germany and Japan, our primary competitors in the new geoeconomy, are far more dependent than the U.S. on imported oil. Yet, neither has offered much more than lip service to the anti-Iraq crusade. That should tell us something about the new world order.

AT last week's Armed Services hearings, there was a strong sentiment that President Bush erred in sending a new wave of troops into the Gulf. Perhaps reducing that troop level will cause the U.S. more embarassment. But a long, costly war could cost the U.S. far more embarassment. Even if we "win," it is not clear that we could attain post-war stability in the Gulf.

And history offers some hope that Iraq will back down peacefully. The last Iraqi leader to threaten Kuwait, General Abdul Karim Qasim, found himself isolated internationally with mounting economic problems at home. By 1963, less than two years after laying claim to Kuwait, Qasim had been deposed and assassinated, and his successor had recinded Iraq's assertion of sovereignty over Kuwait. All without a shot being fired in the Gulf.

Saddam Hussein is an evil dictator, who deserves to be the international pariah he has become. But this is not our war. Liberating a tiny Gulf state and humiliating the tyrant of the week is not an acceptable rationale for massive American casualites.

We can, however, inflict severe geoeconomic pain on Iraq by sustaining collective internatinal sanctions. If we turn too quickly to the strategies of the old order, we will never know the possibilities of the new.

Edward Felsenthal is a second year student at Harvard Law School.