Sanctions and air attacks

From the oil industry's perspective, the most important aspect of air attacks by American and British forces against Iraq were their inevitability.

The stalemate between Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and the United Nations over weapons inspections helped only Saddam. The longer he played cat-and-mouse with inspectors, the stronger he became.

Sooner or later, a world with reason to suspect the worst from the Iraqi president had to act. That the attack occurred the day before the U.S. House of Representatives was to vote on impeachment of President Bill Clinton raises questions of little special relevance to the petroleum industry. What is most important to the industry is that an inevitable attack occurred and that it at least loosened a destructive jam.

Sanctions failed

A crucial subtext runs through the 70-hr air assault on Iraqi military targets. It relates to the weakness of foreign policy based on economic sanctions.

Saddam Hussein's government surely deserves the punishment that sanctions are supposed to deliver. Saddam rules by terror and has shown, by invading Kuwait and Iran, that he covets territory. The way his retreating troops, no doubt acting under orders, ravaged Kuwait and the people there bore witness to his absence of scruples.

Because Saddam so clearly needs to be treated as a menace, the sanctions against his regime have received an unusual level of multilateral support. Although that support is now unraveling, it has lasted more than 8 years.

But the sanctions haven't worked. Saddam remains in power with the ability to present a growing threat to people around him. If that were not so, the U.S. and U.K. would have lacked justification for their recent attacks.

Sanctions have added economic hardship to the already extreme perils of life in an Iraq ruled by Saddam. They have not fostered a revolution. They have only given Iraqis reason to hate the foreign causes of their deprivation.

Sanctions also have inspired the United Nations to base huge mistakes on proper humanitarian urges. The agency's ill-designed oil-for-food program creates a large supply of oil insensitive to price at a time of flagging demand. By suppressing prices, it weakens Iraq's oil-producing neighbors even as Saddam skims proceeds for his weapons programs. And to ensure that things can only get worse, the U.N. this year began allowing shipments of oil field supplies from member countries to increase Iraqi export capacity.

Sanctions always produce screwy outcomes. They begin, after all, by making the wrong people suffer. The U.N. deserves credit for sensing the moral void of sanctions-based strategies, even if it chose an incorrect way to deal with the breach as it applies to Iraq and thus became part of the problem.

Whatever the merits of the timing, the U.S. and U.K. were, therefore, correct to act on their own when they became convinced that the Iraqi threat had again begun to grow. The U.N. had lost sight of the problem. Post-attack, terms of the conflict are more clear than they were before: Saddam vs. the world.

Undernourishment of Iraqis-the U.N.'s preoccupation-should just lend urgency to the need for a solution to the main problem, which is the regime in Baghdad.

The U.S. and U.K. say they next will concentrate on supporting forces in Iraq that oppose Saddam. It won't be easy, but at least they have the objective right. The menace is Saddam, not Iraqis.

Lasting benefit

The allies also say they'll maintain the Iraqi sanctions despite objections from France and Russia. The position is regrettable but sound; Saddam would certainly interpret an end to sanctions now as retreat.

Lasting benefit may yet come from this quagmire. If it makes powerful countries think twice before they respond with sanctions to future problems in foreign affairs, the Iraqi experience will have improved the world for the oil industry, to be sure, but for struggling and oppressed peoples most of all.