EDITORIAL The weakening Iraqi embargo

When Iraqi President Saddam Hussein on Dec. 10 pushed the button to restart flow through his country's crude oil pipeline to Turkey and beyond, nothing happened. A pump failed.

It didn't stop the celebration in Iraq, however. Farmers slaughtered sheep to hail the event. Long-suffering city dwellers danced happily in front of news cameras. Baghdad newspapers welcomed this crack in the international embargo against Iraqi exports, imposed after Saddam's ill-fated invasion of Kuwait in 1990.

Oil prices sag

As expected, prices of crude oil sagged (see related story, p. 21). But they didn't fall so much that anyone could blame their movement solely on renewal of Iraqi exports. News of inventory gains in Europe and the U.S. would have softened the market anyway. Since the departure of Iraq's defeated troops from Kuwait in 1991, traders have anticipated the limited exports that the United Nations will allow Iraq to sell to raise funds for humanitarian needs and war reparations. In the interim, worldwide oil demand has grown from about 66.5 million b/d to more than 72 million b/d. Relative significance of 650,000-750,000 b/d from Iraq, therefore, has shrunk.

With market responses likely to remain moderate, the most telling spectacle in Iraq's undoubtedly staged celebration last week was its central figure. Saddam remains in power. Six years ago, who would have thought it?

In fact, Saddam's position may be more secure now than it was in the run-up to and immediate aftermath of his brutal blunder in Kuwait. Policy-makers should wonder how this can be so.

The problem is not that the allied forces that expelled Iraqi invaders from Kuwait didn't press the fight until Saddam was dead or in chains, appealing though either prospect may be in retrospect. The prudent assumption at the time was that the alliance crucial to Kuwait's liberation wouldn't have withstood a more ambitious mission.

The menace was destined to remain and be dealt with. And the world-mostly the U.S.-has been dealing with Saddam Hussein in two ways, one of them clearly wrong.

The trade embargo has devastated the Iraqi people and helped Saddam consolidate power. Once the Iraqi president proved to be clever and cruel enough to crush domestic efforts to expel him, the embargo's perverse result was predictable: Mass deprivation became an instrument of control. To many Iraqis, survival now depends on oil revenues and obedience to a president inclined to murder antagonists.

So when the autocrat pushes a button signifying hope for new oil revenues, people ceremoniously slaughter livestock, dance in the streets, criticize the embrgo, and pay homage to the autocrat responsible for their suffering. They have no other option.

Can there be any clearer demonstration of the futility of trade sanctions as instruments of foreign policy? Can anyone fault Iraqis for resenting embargo sponsors, even if they do silently curse their oppressor?

The main international goal, of course, is to contain Iraqi aggression. By that standard, policy regarding Iraq has worked. Except for a Kurdish area in northern Iraq that most outsiders prefer to forget, Saddam hasn't lately invaded any of his neighbors. But does the success result from the trade embargo? Or might it have something to do with the world's other way of dealing with Saddam?

Military promise

That other way has been to assure the Iraqi ruler that if he commits certain objectionable acts, such as flying airplanes too close to Kuwait, things will begin to explode around him.

Saddam thus faces two external pressures. One is a trade embargo that represents a convenient national enemy and helps him stay in power. The other is the cruise missile that may one day find the building where he hides. It is the clear promise of military retaliation, not the embargo, that keeps Saddam from trying once again to enlarge Iraq. The military promise must stay in place. The embargo now just helps to prolong Iraq's reign of terror.

Copyright 1996 Oil & Gas Journal. All Rights Reserved.