Pre-emptive or preventive U.S. 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 exists. 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 tell 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.