JP/7/HILMAN2

JP/7/HILMAN2

THE CASE FOR PRE-EMPTIVE OR PREVENTIVE US ACTION AGAINST IRAQ

Hilman Adil
Indonesian Institute of Sciences
(LIPI)
Jakarta

Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger once said: "The
biggest problem in the conduct of foreign policy is that when
one's scope for action is greatest, the knowledge on which to
base such action is at a minimum; when one's knowledge is
greatest, the scope for creative action has often disappeared".
(Singapore Lecture 1981). This is a dilemma facing the United
States in its policy towards Iraq right now where the case of
pre-emptive versus preventive military action puts the U.S. at
odds with its European allies, Arab states and the Islamic world
in general.

At issue is whether it is legitimate for the U.S. to launch a
war against Iraq. The question whether pre-emptive or preventive
strike in this case can have a legitimate basis can only be
answered, if there is a clear understanding of what is really
meant by these two concepts in the realm of international
relations.

The term "pre-emptive" military action refers to situations
when states reacts to an imminent threat of attack. When Egyptian
and Syrian forces were massing on Israel's borders in 1967, the
threat was obvious and immediate. This was a case when a
"visible" threat appears. Therefore the international community
represented in the United Nations felt that Israel was justified
in pre-emptively attacking those forces.

"Preventive" military action refers to strikes that target a
country before it has developed a capability that could some day
be threatening. Such an action would never be sanctioned by the
international community as was the case in the Japanese attack on
Pearl Harbor in 1941, because they were seeking to block a
planned US military buildup in the Pacific.

Critics in the U.S., among its allies and in the Islamic world
are asserting that in launching a preventive war against Iraq,
Washington would set a dangerous precedent, as the U.S. could
only use military force or change foreign regimes after having
been attacked or threatened with imminent attack. In an eloquent
speech before the U.S. Senate on Oct. 7, 2002, the Democrat
Senator from Massachusetts, Edward M. Kennedy, criticized the
Bush Administration National Security Strategy on Iraq.

The underlying argument of this strategy claims that threats
by Iraq or terrorist groups with weapons of mass destruction,
especially after Sept. 11, and now after Oct. 12 in Bali, where
the new enemy is "invisible" and may strike without warning, are
so novel and so dangerous that the U.S. should "not hesitate to
act alone, if necessary, to exercise its right of self-defense by
acting pre-emptively" in accordance with Chapter VII of the UN
Charter.

Therefore the Cold War concepts of deterrence and containment
are now considered obsolete and the concept of a justified pre-
emptive strike must adapt to these new circumstances.
This new idea of pre-emptive strike as proposed in the Bush
doctrine is far more extensive in its implication than proponents
of the doctrine will admit. It says: "As a matter of common sense
and self-defense, America will act against such emerging threats
before they are really formed".

What is being proposed is a strategy not of pre-emptive strike
but of preventive war. In the discussion over the past few months
about Iraq, the Bush administration, often uses the terms "pre-
emptive" and "preventive" interchangeably. As a consequence, it
makes clear that the U.S. reserves to itself the right to strike
unilaterally in disregard of the established processes of the UN.

In its far-reaching implications, the Bush doctrine apparently
is prepared to disregard norms of international behavior and
therefore the U.S. should be exempt from the rules which other
nations are supposed to accept.

One cannot possibly justify such double standards under
international law, as might does not make right. Under the Bush
doctrine, the U.S. can not only go to war on the basis of an
imagined threat but it also gives it the right to decide alone
when such a threat exist. This doctrine in fact is a call for a
revival of imperialism which is unacceptable to the world at
large.

This would have enormous consequences that would affect all
nations and might threaten international cooperation as it will
reinforce the perception of the U.S. as a bully, and would fuel
anti-American sentiment throughout the Islamic world and beyond.
There is also the danger that the current U.S. focus on Iraq is
counter-productive on both accounts against the background of the
terrorist attack in Bali on Oct.12.

A war in Iraq will do nothing to prevent further massacres on
a scale similar to that in Bali. Most likely even the Bush
administration will find it a stretch to blame Bali on Saddam
Hussein. More dangerously still, by inflaming opinion in the
Islamic world and beyond, war may disrupt anti-terror efforts,
weaken or destroy the international coalition and mobilize more
supporters for al-Qaeda, raising the prospect for more massacres
of innocent people.

If the events in Bali tells us anything, it is that the defeat
of international security terrorism is the most pressing issue
which many countries have to face at this moment. It is far too
important to be diverted for divisive reasons by one country
against another as the war against terrorism should be the top
priority of any government.

DR. Hilman Adil is a Research Professor at LIPI, Jakarta.