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December 17, 2001/Vol. 158 No. 25
The war in Afghanistan seems nearly won. The War Against Terror, President George W. Bush keeps reminding us, has hardly started. In September he promised it will continue "until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated." Last month he said the Afghan war "was just the beginning." So where will the mighty juggernaut of American power steer next? The question is making many world leaders shift uncomfortably — and not just those who might be Washington's next targets. America's closest allies in Europe are anxious that Bush, emboldened by his Afghan success, may become besotted with military force. They acknowledge his sober conduct of the war so far, contrary to the caricature of him that prevailed in Europe before Sept. 11 as a jejune cowboy. But still the signals from Washington are making them jittery. Military and intelligence sources tell TIME that the Pentagon is preparing a range of contingency plans for throttling an array of global bad guys, ranging from Hizballah fighters in the Bekaa Valley of Lebanon to the Abu Sayyaf rebels in the Philippines to diffuse cells linked to al-Qaeda in Somalia. Two weeks ago, Bush ratcheted up warnings toward North Korea, a rogue nation with a suspected nuclear program but no known ties to al-Qaeda. Other pariah regimes with al-Qaeda links, such as Sudan and Yemen, may also surface on America's hit list. But when Bush injected a new wrinkle into his elastic definition of terror, saying that "if [countries] develop weapons of mass destruction that will be used to terrorize nations, they will be held accountable," he was unmistakably addressing an audience of one: Saddam Hussein. War with Iraq? The world has grown used to an uneasy coexistence with Saddam since the Gulf War. No direct link has been proved between Iraq and the attacks on Sept. 11, though there are intriguing bits of circumstantial evidence, including two meetings in Prague between Mohamed Atta, who piloted American Airlines Flight 11 into the World Trade Center, and a senior Iraqi intelligence officer. Solid proof would virtually guarantee an onslaught against Saddam. Even without it, there's a powerful argument for using force to topple him. He has been trying to build weapons of mass destruction for decades, and three years ago kicked out the international inspectors who were slowing him down. He used chemical weapons against Iran and his own people. He runs a police state more vicious than the Taliban's. As U.N. sanctions atrophy, he is getting richer and more able to buy weapons technology and expertise abroad. He lusts to avenge his defeat in the Gulf War. "That wound sits deep," his former chief of staff Nazar Khazraji told Der Spiegel. To advocates of "regime change" in Baghdad, the argument is a no-brainer: Why wait until this proven and mortal danger gets a chance to land the first blow? They make one other argument: victory will be cheap. "Saddam can be brought down a lot faster than many people assume," says Richard Perle, a veteran bureaucratic warrior who advises Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld as chairman of the Defense Policy Board, a haven for hawks. He argues that 10 years of sanctions and continued bombing of Iraq's air defenses by the U.S. and Britain have eroded the regime's ability to beat back an attack. "Saddam's security is very brittle," says a top U.S. official familiar with Iraq. "Loyalty of his forces is built on fear, and if there was a decisive American attack a lot of it would melt away." Afghanistan is the model: heavy U.S. bombing to support local forces, in this case Kurds in the north, Shi'ites in the south and anti-Saddam defectors in the center, who would soon be welcomed by cheering crowds in Baghdad. Europe remains profoundly unconvinced. German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder said bluntly last week that "we are against an extension of the fight [in Afghanistan]." A senior aide to French President Jacques Chirac said that "no one has any fondness for Saddam, and we'd be as happy as anyone to see him atomized once and for all. But an attempt to extend this operation beyond Afghanistan would be catastrophic," by destroying the coalition. Vladimir Putin may want to get closer to Bush, but Saddam has told his officials to consider Russia an "especially friendly country," and his delegation to Moscow recently got red-carpet treatment as it dangled $35 billion in commercial contracts once U.N. sanctions disappear. Even stalwart Tony Blair is signaling discreetly he'd like Bush to curb his hard-liners. Europe's skepticism may flow in part from an unwillingness to witness more concrete proof of U.S. hegemony. But it is also fueled by strong doubts that Saddam will keel over with one shove. Michael O'Hanlon, a military expert at the Brookings Institution in Washington, says the élite Republican Guard knows their fate is bound up with Saddam's and are far better armed and more disciplined than any Taliban forces. "Overthrowing Saddam means a war in Baghdad," he says, "and that's going to be much harder than anything we've done in Afghanistan" — requiring at least 250,000 troops, perhaps 500,000. Arab governments loathe Saddam too — but paradoxically, they hate the idea of fighting him just as much. Unless the war succeeds instantly, they fear both internal unrest and a long period of regional instability as Iraq breaks apart into ethnic fiefs. U.S. backing for Israel as it steps up its fight against Yasser Arafat will make it doubly hard to ally with Washington against another Arab country. Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa has told TIME that "you will find no Arab country willing to play ball with this." That includes Saudi Arabia, whose extensive military infrastructure was essential to the Gulf War — though Washington might sweeten the pot by quietly offering to give up its bases in the kingdom once Saddam is gone. Bush has kept the coalition together the same way he has quelled the Iraq fight in his Administration: by focusing on the immediate, and substantial, task of destroying al-Qaeda and the Taliban . Secretary of State Colin Powell stuck to that approach on a diplomatic mission last week. In Turkey, whose President Ahmet Necdet Sezer had denounced an American war against its neighbor Iraq just before he arrived, Powell said that Bush "has made no decision" about the next phase of the antiterror campaign. The Pentagon has sent a battle plan to the White House, but senior officials in Washington say any decision remains in the distant future. The focus for now is on a diplomatic push to force Saddam to readmit weapons inspectors. For an effort no one expects to succeed, it has surprising support. Doves back it because it buys time; hawks are sure it will prove Saddam's truculence, thus bringing closer the day when George Bush, with allies or alone, can tackle an ugly job inherited from his father. With reporting by BRUCE CRUMLEY/Paris, JAMES GRAFF/Brussels, SCOTT MacLEOD/Cairo, MARK THOMPSON/Washington and REGINE WOSNITZA/Berlin | ||||||
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