Opinion Editorial

Wednesday, December 23, 1998  

Sanctions Have Failed In Iraq

Be it they course, to busy giddy minds With foreign quarrels; that action, hence borne out, May waste the memory of the former days.

William Shakespeare, "Henry IV"

Whether or not it is true, there is no question that many people, both in America and around the world, firmly believe that in bombing Iraq last week Bill Clinton was simply following Shakespeare's advice. Beginning, as it did, the day impeachment proceedings against him were scheduled to begin in the House of Representatives and ending the day those proceedings terminated, it is impossible not to be suspicious of his motives. It appears to many that dozens of Iraqis died, thousands of American fighting men and women were put in harm's way, and hundreds of millions of dollars of American treasure was wasted simply to divert attention from Clinton's domestic political problems.

But there is a larger foreign policy question here that should also be examined, and that is the efficacy of our sanctions policy. For decades, American presidents have told us that we could achieve our foreign policy goals and change the behavior of foreign governments by using trade, rather than arms, as a weapon. Trade sanctions, we have been told time and time again, will do the job without threatening American lives.

This is especially true in the case of Iraq, against which we and our allies have maintained a tight economic embargo for more than 8 years. Yet there is simply no evidence whatsoever that these sanctions have in fact achieved their goal or ever will. Saddam Hussein is still in power, he still threatens peace in the Middle East, continues to build weapons of mass destruction, and seems to have little difficulty obtaining all the war material he needs despite the embargo on trade.

The problem, of course, is that sanctions are a blunt instrument whose force falls primarily on ordinary Iraqis. And the impact has been devastating according to numerous reports. Children in particular suffer from a lack of food and medicine that is a direct result of sanctions. Hundreds of thousands are said to have died. Yet the elite and the powerful lack for almost nothing because of massive smuggling. Following is a report published in Newsweek on June 22:

"Despite U.N. trade sanctions, Baghdad is becoming a shopping mecca for luxury goods. Sleek BMWs, Suzuki Vitaras and Honda Civics stand out against the rusting taxis. A Beneton branch opened in February and movies like 'Speed 2' and 'Titanic' are showing along with Indonesian tires, Japanese laptops and Italian sunglasses. For customers with disposable cash, which excludes about 99 percent of the population, 'you can get almost anything you want,' says one diplomat."

The fallacy of the sanctions policy is assuming that Iraq is a democracy in which the people have some say in their government. Thus harming innocent civilians is justified on the grounds that this will lead them to pressure their leaders to change their behavior as we would like. But as everyone knows, Iraq is an authoritarian state, if not a totalitarian one, in which the people have no voice, no power, no political influence whatsoever. Anyone even speaking their mind publicly is quickly silenced, often permanently. Therefore, the premise upon which the entire sanctions policy is based is clearly and demonstrably false.

Bombing Iraq, as President Clinton has done, only compounds the error. Any change in Iraqi behavior that results from it will be temporary at best, an effort to buy time, nothing more. Only elimination of Saddam Hussein is going to change Iraq's policies. Continuing to punish innocent civilians for his crimes is immoral and indefensible.

Source: Bruce Bartlett, senior fellow, National Center for Policy Analysis, December 23, 1998.

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