The Perils of Containment

On Dec. 8, the deadline for Iraq to officially declare to the world the status of its weapons of mass destruction programs, President Bush will have to decide, once again, whether to continue a policy of containment based upon sanctions and intermittent inspections, or to use military action to ensure that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein will never threaten the world. Those who oppose an American use of force without the authorization of a new U.N. resolution have embraced containment and deterrence as a way to control the Iraqi threat while avoiding the chaos and bloodshed of military action. Proponents of containment point out that it has been a cornerstone of American foreign policy since the end of World War II, with the threat of massive U.S. retaliation deterring dictators such as Stalin and Mao from using their arsenals of destructive weapons. These advocates contend that the 11 relatively quiet years since the end of the Gulf War, especially the four years since Iraq expelled the previous group of U.N. weapons inspectors, prove that Hussein would never risk his life or his power in order to strike the U.S. or its allies. Senator Carl Levin (D-Mich.) argued in August that “containment of Saddam is working… He would not, in my judgment, initiate an attack with a weapon of mass destruction because it would lead to his own destruction… He’s a survivalist, not a suicide bomber.”

Such speculative assessments of Hussein’s character underlie any plan for containing Iraq; deterrence, after all, can be effective only against those who are reliably rational. The history of Hussein’s rule, Levin’s optimistic assertions notwithstanding, indicates that the United States would be foolish indeed to stake the security of its population on assumptions of Hussein’s rationality. Containment of such a dictator neither eliminates the threat, nor even maintains the status quo—as time passes, Hussein’s arsenal grows, and American options dwindle.

Hussein, hardly the shrewd calculator that critics of the Bush administration’s policies have portrayed, has demonstrated a remarkable willingness to risk both his hold on power and his life on foreign gambits that had little chance of success. As Kenneth Pollack, a former CIA analyst, pointed out in a New York Times op-ed piece, Hussein, believing Iraq could dominate its larger neighbor, started a bloody eight-year war with Iran that decimated his army and almost caused his government to fall. By 1988, the final year of the war against Iran, Iraq was riven with rebellion; only Hussein’s singular ferocity in dealing with domestic unrest, as exemplified by his murder of thousands of Kurds with poison gas, prevented his dictatorship from falling.

Only two years after the end of the Iraq-Iran war, Hussein launched a massive invasion of Kuwait, once again risking his regime based on what proved to be very flawed assumptions. Initially, Hussein incorrectly guessed that the United States would be unwilling or unable to garner enough international support to expel the Iraqis from Kuwait. Then, when it became clear during subsequent months that the U.S. had both the will and the capability to destroy his forces, Hussein grossly misjudged the efficacy of his own military, convincing himself that the Iraqi army could fight well enough to produce a bloody stalemate.

Iraq’s crushing defeat in the Gulf War forced Hussein to change his tactics, but only increased his unbounded recklessness in international affairs. In 1993, Hussein’s agents were foiled in an attempt to assassinate both the Emir of Kuwait and then-President George H. W. Bush. In ordering this crime, Hussein risked an overwhelming military response from the U.S. for little reason other than to gratify his thirst for vengeance. This assassination attempt constitutes a casus belli for the U.S. as long as Hussein remains the ruler of Iraq, and demonstrates that he is not a rational actor who can be trusted as a predictable, let alone responsible, steward of weapons of mass destruction.

The United States at this moment has a narrow window of opportunity for eliminating the threat posed by a Hussein-controlled Iraq. He likely has an extremely potent stockpile of chemical and biological weapons, regardless of what the inspectors do or do not find, but is limited in his ability to deliver them. After another year or two of “containment,” even with sporadic inspections, Iraq would likely possess sophisticated drones for deploying chemical and biological weapons, longer-range ballistic missiles, and functional nuclear weapons.

Containment is precisely the wrong option for addressing such a growing threat. Deterrence, after all, is a two-way street. The Soviet Union’s nuclear arsenal permitted it—directly or through proxies—to export its murderous doctrines around the globe for almost 50 years, at a cost of tens of millions of lives. The autocrats of North Korea, because of their ability to cause massive damage to South Korea and Japan on short notice, are relatively free to starve their own population and sponsor terror abroad. Containment of Iraq would, at best, provide Hussein leverage to act with a similar impunity in the Middle East; at worst it would give him the time and means to attack the U.S. or its allies in catastrophic fashion. For the sake of the American people, and for the sake of the Iraqi people, the U.S. must ensure that neither scenario comes to pass.

Stephen P. Bosco ’03-’04 is a history of international relations concentrator in Lowell House.