The Escape Valve

Demosthenes asks an interesting and worthwhile question in my previous post on Iraq:

So, what are the conditions under which the United States doesn’t invade, and if there aren’t any, why the hell should the U.N. believe a word Bush says?

The conditions have been clear from the beginning. Iraq has to unilaterally disarm. The President’s rhetoric has always been "disarm or we will disarm you" That means every bit of Saddam’s biological, chemical, and nuclear arsenal has to go.

Of course, we know he won’t do that any more than the Taliban would have turned over Osama bin Laden to us in the Afghan War. It’s not in his interest. If he does that, it would probably mean a big enough black eye that he’d be killed in a coup. You don’t play up the Mother of All Battles then suddenly give in to the Evil American Pig Dogs. Granted, there’s always the possibility he might do it if for no other reason than to stay in power, but that doesn’t seem very likely.

I still maintain that we have information that the UN does not about the capabilities and extent of Iraq’s WMD capability. Part of me says it’s because we’re already scouting the country and another part says that we have sources inside the country who are working for us. The reason we cannot hand that information over to the UN is because it would compromise those sources, and we cannot afford that at this point in time. So, our option at the moment is to let the inspections play out in full knowledge that they won’t find anything. (Which isn’t earthshattering. It would take more than a handfull of inspectors a few months to search an entire nation.)

I do believe that war is inevitable at this point. The risk that Iraq poses to regional stability and America itself cannot be ignored except at the greatest peril. The interest of the UN are to find nothing and let the issue blow over, so they will find nothing. The Iraqis are more than willing to help in that issue. The only wrench in the gears is the US who cannot afford to allow things to merely blow over while Baghdad develops a nuclear weapon. In the end, the UN has to know that despite all their efforts to stop the US from removing the Hussein regime, they simply cannot get Saddam Hussein to excersize the one option that would remove the threat of war.