'Smart sanctions' need hard sell

Britain and the United States have been widely criticized for their handling of Iraq ever since renegade dictator Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990. But they have recently woken up to the chorus of protests from the international community to the unfair and ineffective sanctions which they have championed. When they responded to reports of Iraqi children dying in hospitals for lack of medicines, it was only to claim that the suffering was the fault of Iraq's leaders who were importing cases of whisky and luxury cars under the UN's oil-for-food program, begun in 1996, instead of drugs and medical supplies.

Baghdad, predictably, demands an end to all sanctions, and opposes the proposed changes out of fear that they will allow the sanctions to go on for years to come. Also, as one British official put it, Mr. Saddam will no longer be able to blame the sanctions for the Iraqi people's suffering if there are no restrictions on imports of consumer goods.

It is difficult to understand why it has taken so long for the pro-sanctions faction on the Security Council to come up with the "smart sanctions" concept given the years of news reports coming out of Iraq showing the unjust nature of the embargo. And it is still unclear what options will be left to the UN should Iraq choose to refuse the new sanctions regime. Most likely, the oil- for-food program will continue as before, leaving the U.S. and Britain with only a hollow moral victory, proving that the Iraqi regime doesn't care about the welfare of its people, something which the rest of the world has known for years. Worse than that, the pro-sanctions nations will be forced to continue with their increasingly untenable position, while world opinion continues to shift against the embargo.

Unquestionably, Mr. Saddam's access to weaponry must be prevented so that he cannot bully his neighbors. But for the UN to continue with harsh sanctions which have not unseated the Iraqi dictator and have only created a climate of misery for his people would be wrong.

-- The Bangkok Post