editorial ("The Nation", Feb. 9, 1998)

Boris Yeltsin's warning that a U.S. attack on Iraq could provoke World War III was greeted as just another of his uncorked effusions. But this was no Yeltsin hallucination: Something alarming has crept into the increasingly bellicose bluster over Baghdad--open discussion of a U.S. nuclear strike.

We now know that the United States considered a nuclear attack during the Gulf War. As Gen. George Lee Butler, former Commander of the U.S. Strategic Command, told the National Press Club on February 2, "At the very heart of [the Gulf War] calculus was to imagine the prospect of using nuclear weapons." Consideration of the option was a closely held secret at the highest levels of the Pentagon and White House. But this time around, "nuke 'em" is already slipping past the lips of prominent voices in the national security apparatus and punditocracy. The new U.S. nuclear policy directive reported in December explicitly allows for a nuclear strike against a so-called rogue state threatening the use of chemical or biological weapons--a significant departure from past policy. On February 3, Gen. Eugene Habiger, who today has Butler's job, told the Omaha World-Herald that StratCom is ready to help with nuclear planning and targeting against Saddam Hussein. Responding to Yeltsin's outburst, on February 5 State Department spokesman James Rubin denied any current plans for a nuclear attack on Iraq but then added portentously, "We do not rule out in advance any capability available to us." Rubin hinted at a nuclear response to "the situation in which the U.S., our allies and our forces have been attacked with chemical or biological weapons." In The New York Times, William Safire argued on February 2 that any Iraqi "germ warfare" would "invite" a nuclear response.

Worrisome as Saddam's cat-and-mouse defiance of U.N. weapons inspectors may be, no analyst has suggested that his arsenal approaches the destructive power of a nuclear warhead. And considering Iraq's current weak military condition, nuclear-weapons rhetoric seems designed to induce public acceptance for the broad rogue-state policy. But nuclear threats are only the most extreme example of the disproportionate and reckless rhetoric emanating from Washington, which escalates as the isolation of the United States and Britain from their Gulf War allies becomes clear. By the end of Defense Secretary William Cohen's recent ally-consulting tour, the "support" pledged to Washington consisted of little more than a Kuwaiti airfield and minor aid from Australia and Canada.

Washington's unilateralism is particularly hazardous with regard to Russia. Yeltsin's comments suggest the unease generated in the Kremlin and the Duma by saber-rattling over the Persian Gulf. U.S.-Russian relations are already frayed over the expansion of NATO. Russia may well veto any U.N. resolution authorizing Gulf War II, setting the stage for a deeper breach. Meanwhile, in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt remain opposed to a bombing campaign; again the United States will be perceived in the region as merely a surrogate for Israeli strategic interests. And Washington is again making the mistake of dealing with Iraq in isolation from the broader Middle East crisis. Threatening Saddam for dodging inspections while Israel maintains the region's only nuclear arsenal is seen in the Arab world as evidence of the same imbalance visible in the destruction of the Oslo peace process.

As with Bosnia, important questions of principle are involved in the debate: Saddam's brutal dictatorship and his defiance of U.N. weapons agreements are matters of international concern. Recently Congressional Republicans have taken to calling for active U.S. backing of an anti-Saddam rebellion, and in Britain particularly, Iraqi and Kurdish exile groups hope that military action will oust Saddam. But as Defense Secretary Cohen has pointed out, this seems an unlikely outcome. If anything, the backlash against a bombing campaign may well strengthen Saddam and his Baathist Party.

One of the things the Clinton Administration has done right is to avoid full-scale military adventures. There has been no Gulf War, no Grenada, no secret war against Nicaragua; Haiti and Bosnia, while exercises of dubious wisdom, can at least be classified as occupations with humanitarian and stabilizing goals. Will the President endanger that record for a bombing campaign that will not resolve the condition that supposedly provoked it and that will destabilize the international community?

At press time, the best chance of averting a disaster seemed to rest with U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, who wisely warned against "humiliating" Iraq in a fashion that would make a diplomatic settlement impossible. "To move forward everyone has to show some flexibility," Annan told the BBC. His words should guide public thinking about the crisis: "If we maintain fundamentalist or purist positions all around, we will not find a solution. I appeal for that kind of courage, that kind of wisdom that will allow us to get out of this."