… could find it coming up again and again anyway.
THE PRESIDENT mulls a strike against Iraq, which he calls an “outlaw nation” in league with an “unholy axis of terrorists, drug traffickers and organized international criminals.” The talk among world leaders, however, focuses on diplomacy. France, Russia, China, and most Arab nations oppose military action. The Saudis balk at giving us overflight rights. U.N. secretary general Kofi Annan prepares a last-ditch attempt to convince Saddam Hussein to abide by the U.N. resolutions he agreed to at the end of the Gulf War.
Administration rhetoric could hardly be stronger. The president asks the nation to consider this question: What if Saddam Hussein “fails to comply, and we fail to act, or we take some ambiguous third route which gives him yet more opportunities to develop his program of weapons of mass destruction and continue to press for the release of the sanctions and continue to ignore the solemn commitments that he made? Well, he will conclude that the international community has lost its will. He will then conclude that he can go right on and do more to rebuild an arsenal of devastating destruction.”
The president’s warnings are firm. “If we fail to respond today, Saddam and all those who would follow in his footsteps will be emboldened tomorrow.” The stakes, he says, could not be higher. “Some day, some way, I guarantee you, he’ll use the arsenal.”
Those were the words — and the setting for them — of President Bill Clinton on 18 February 1998, having just been briefed by the Pentagon, and having just built up US forces in the Persian Gulf for the previous month.
A few days later, the UN brokered a new deal with Iraq, letting in weapons inspectors.
Several months after that, Iraq kicked the inspectors out again. We did a little bombing. We set up a new inspection regime, which was not let into Iraq, and there things have stood.
Needless to say, Pres. Clinton got a lot more applause from Democrats on Capitol Hill than Pres. Bush has. Indeed, Senator Daschle noted at the time, in Clinton’s support, that Administration position was:
‘Look, we have exhausted virtually our diplomatic effort to get the Iraqis to comply with their own agreements and with international law. Given that, what other option is there but to force them to do so?’ That’s what they’re saying. This is the key question. And the answer is we don’t have another option. We have got to force them to comply, and we are doing so militarily.
What a difference a regime change makes.
(via Volokh)