No Objective, No Will

By Henry Kissinger

Sunday, October 6 1996; Page C07 The Washington Post

"When the smoke lifted in Iraq, it became apparent that the box into which we claimed to have put Saddam suddenly included the former safe haven." The recent crisis in Iraq reveals a wide gap between what the American public is told and how the same events are perceived in the rest of the world. Americans were informed by their government that 44 cruise missiles had sent a message to Saddam Hussein and that he had been put back in his box by this decisive American action.

But what the rest of the world perceives -- and especially the gulf states, which are both key suppliers of energy and totally dependent for their security on American support -- is that our military riposte amounted to pinpricks that could not prevent a significant political victo\ry for Saddam.

There is no blinking at the facts that Saddam's forces entered unopposed a so-called safe haven established under U.S. protection for the Kurdish population in northern Iraq and that American missiles could not save the anti-Saddam forces the CIA established there. At least 100 friends of America were executed, and some 3,000 others have been evacuated to Guam, as far away from their homeland as it is possible to be in this world -- presumably because they are unreachable by the media during the presidential elections.

After threatening another round of "disproportionate retaliation," the Clinton administration withdrew the second aircraft carrier designed to reinforce this threat. NATO ally Turkey has dissociated itself from America's Kurdish policy, leaving Saddam as the dominant factor in the erstwhile safe haven. Saudi Arabia refused to make its bases available to U.S. forces because of its leaders' judgment that our attacks would leave the Iraqi threat to Saudi Arabia unimpaired and its malice enhanced -- in other words, that our means did not coincide with our goals.

Our European allies supported our retaliation only grudgingly, if at all, and are working counter to our "dual containment" policy vis-a-vis Iran and Iraq by supporting the easing of sanctions on Iraq and by conducting a "constructive dialogue" with Iran.

Political defeat thus has been coupled with the collapse of the coalition that has heretofore ensured stability in the gulf. It is important to understand how we slid into this situation.

Karl von Clausewitz's dictum that war is a continuation of politics by other means has found few followers in the United States.

Conventional American wisdom holds that negotiations are fueled by demonstrations of goodwill and that military pressure is inimical to diplomatic solutions. This is why we stopped military operations at the beginning of negotiations for a Korean armistice and halted the bombing of North Vietnam as an entrance price into negotiations rather than as a reward for their completion. In each instance, we paid with years of stalemate and continuing casualties.

The same attitudes governed the policies that concluded the gulf war. On the eve of victory, President Bush, without whose strong leadership the victorious coalition never would have come about, found himself besieged by advice to stop military operations. The objective of liberating Kuwait has been achieved, he was told from all sides: Further military operations would risk needless casualties, and continuing them after victory was tantamount to "piling on."

Yet it is clear now that victory could not be secure without the removal of Saddam. It also is true that every key member of the present administration, including the president, either opposed the war or reacted with an ambivalence that, if followed, would have allowed Saddam his Kuwait conquest and led to a collapse of order in the entire gulf region.

Saddam's political survival has forced us into the policy of "dual containment" against Iran and Iraq, the two strongest nations in the area. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the gulf states are not strong enough to resist either of these countries alone, much less the two together. Fundamentalist Iran has defined itself as our permanent opponent; outcast Saddam removed Iraq from the strategic equation, and the longer he survived, the more doubts he raised about the reach of American power.

The countries we are protecting are at once very conscious of their dependence on the United States and very nervous about too visible an association with us. With America as the guarantor of all the frontiers and arrangements in one of the most volatile regions of the world, everything has depend ed on our ability to deal with the likely consequences of Saddam's continued rule -- one of the most significant of which has been the situation within Iraq itself.

Immediately after the Western coalition ended the gulf war and saved Saddam from catastrophe, he turned his army against those dissident elements within his country threatening to secede in the Shiite south and in the Kurdish north. The attack on the Kurds produced a flood of refugees into Turkey, which, already beset by pressures for autonomy from its own Kurdish minority, received them ambivalently at best. America's response to Iraqi pressures was to establish a Kurdish safe haven in northern Iraq by proscribing both overflights by the Iraqi air force (the no-fly zone) and the presence there of Iraqi troops.

The Clinton administration tried to use the safe haven as a base for overthrowing Saddam. But it failed to recognize that, without a political framework, the restrictions established by its predecessor would turn into wasting assets. As in Somalia, the administration revealed an inability to define a sustainable political objective and a lack of will to use the force requisite for success.

The heroic Kurdish people exist as a minority in Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria. Despite centuries of being an often oppressed minority, they have maintained their fierce aspiration to independence. Yet this passionate patriotism complicates the task of preserving the Kurds' autonomy inside Iraq. An autonomous Kurdish area in northern Iraq without any formal political status creates a vacuum attracting the hostility of all neighbors that view Kurdish independence as a threat to their own territorial integrity. Turkey, Iran and even Syria tacit\ly support Saddam's effort to reassert his domination -- a point recently made explicit by Turkish Foreign Minister Tansu Ciller.

The administration therefore was building its covert anti-Saddam base on a shaky foundation as long as it had not reached some political understanding with Turkey that would induce it to cooperate with autonomy for northern Iraq. Instead, the administration glossed over the underlying political problem without solving it and maintained a status quo that depended more and more on military response by a distant America whose public had not been sensitized to the issues at stake.

Another prerequisite for the protection of the safe haven was unity among the Kurdish factions. This objective should have received the highest priority in Washington. When, partly as a result of American neglect, the two major factions began fighting each other, the stage was set for Saddam's reestablishment of Iraqi preeminence.

Cooperating with one of the factions, Saddam struck, and his forces destroyed the entire CIA-supported political structure in northern Iraq, rendering his subsequent withdrawal meaningless. For a permanent Iraqi presence is not required to sustain Saddam's political victory; recent experiences have demonstrated for all to see Iraq's looming capability and the seeming American inability to protect its friends.

The nature of America's military response compounded the problem. American strategic planning in the gulf, concentrated as it is on the defense of Kuwait, illustrates the adage that strategists tend to plan for the last war rather than the next. A direct attack on Kuwait is in fact the least likely contingency; the greatest current threat is Saddam's strategy of showing up the administration's inability to manage the politicalmilitary conflict with Iraq.

The Kurdish safe haven, already precariously placed because of the absence of an adequate political structure, could be protected only by unity among the Kurds and a hair-trigger American military response thwarting actual Iraqi intervention. Yet when Saddam moved, the administration's military riposte had the feel of an abstract staff study on air strategy. It was unrelated to the area being contested and overlaid with the excruciatingly academic theory of "signaling," drawn from arms-control seminars.

Only a blow entailing consequences Saddam was unwilling to endure could have prevented his reassertion of control over the Kurdish area. And it had to be done quickly enough to prevent a fait accompli. There was no substitute for attacking the forces and support system actually engaged in the aggression.

Damaging or destroying Republican Guard divisions north of Baghdad certainly would have attracted Saddam's attention; it would have weakened the forces operating in the safe haven and, even more important, the constituent elements of Saddam's rule. The argument that the Saudis' refusal to let us use their bases had made such a strategy impossible is an evasion. It would be depressing if our arsenal of B-1s, B-2s and B-52s did not contain a few launchers capable of operating over northern Iraq.

The reason for the administration's restraint was its addiction to the "signaling theory" that proved so pernicious in Vietnam. The key decision a president makes is whether to use force. But once having made it, he should not do so half-heartedly. He must pose risks for the adversary the latter is not willing to confront.

The signaling approach does the exact opposite: It selects military targets not decisive in themselves as a warning of more drastic measures to follow. But the adversary is more likely to interpret restraint as reluctance to run risks, and so long as our military response is endurable, he has an incentive to wait for our next move. Such a pinprick approach usually generates incentives opposite to the intention; gradual escalation becomes more likely than ending matters. When the smoke lifted in Iraq, it became apparent that the box into which we claimed to have put Saddam suddenly includ

Turkey says 19 dead in clashes with Kurd rebels 05:51 Oct 06, 1996

ANKARA, Oct 6 (Reuter) - Four Turkish soldiers and 15 Kurdish rebels have been killed in clashes in a central Turkish province, state-run Anatolian news agency said on Sunday.

Troops backed by Cobra helicopters and F-16 jets launched attacks on Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) guerrillas on Saturday evening in the central Turkish province of Sivas, Anatolian quoted a security official as saying.

It said the attack was launched after four Turkish soldiers were killed and 17 were injured in an ambush by PKK guerrillas on Saturday afternoon.

It said a PKK regional commander was among rebels killed in the fighting.

More than 20,000 people have been killed in the PKK's 12-year-old armed struggle for autonomy or independence in the southeast of the country.

Turkey's Erbakan defends Libya against West 07:26 Oct 06, 1996

ANKARA, Oct 6 (Reuter) - Turkey's Islamist Prime Minister, on a controversial visit to Libya, on Sunday dismissed U.S. allegations that Tripoli sponsored terrorism as Western ``propaganda'' and proposed to triple trade with the sanctions-hit country.

``This is propaganda. We know that Libya is against terrorist activities. Libya is the country suffering most from terror,'' Turkish premier Necmettin Erbakan was quoted as saying by Turkey's state-run Anatolian news agency.

Earlier, Erbakan had been shown around a house belonging to Libyan leader Muammer Gaddafi in Tripoli that was hit during air strikes by U.S. fighter bombers in 1986.

``We saw there an example, like a monument, showing the suffering which Libya has experienced,'' Erbakan told a news conference ahead of talks with Gaddafi in the Libyan coastal city of Sirte, some 450 km (250 miles) east of Tripoli.

The comments by Erbakan, who on Sunday completed his first hundred days in office, have aggravated suspicions that he seeks to subvert modern Turkey's long-standing Western ties and strenghten links with Moslem countries.

He said Turkey plans to triple trade with Libya to $2 billion from $623 million in 1995 if the north African country pays its debts of more than $300 million due to Turkish contractors. There was no immediate comment on the repayments by Libyan officials.

Erbakan has said Libya could sell Turkey oil, natural gas, petrochemicals and fertiliser and buy food, textiles and industrial products.

Libya has suffered economically in recent years from sanctions imposed by the United Nations over its refusal to hand over two Libyans suspected of blowing up a Pan Am airliner over Scotland in 1988.

A ban on flights to and from Libya meant Erbakan had to fly from Cairo to the Tunisian island of Jerba and then travel on by road for the visit.

Turkish Foreign Minister Tansu Ciller, the Islamists' conservative coalition partner, has described the visit as ill-timed while the interior minister, a member of Ciller's party, has threatened to resign over the trip.

Ciller herself visited Libya and met Gaddafi in 1994, when she was prime minister.

Washington, already wary of modern Turkey's first Islamist leader -- who made a state visit to Iran over the summer after taking office -- has expressed disquiet at the Libya visit.

The United States accuses both Libya and Iran of sponsoring state terrorism and has rebuked its NATO ally for forging closer ties with the two countries. Few foreign leaders have visited Tripoli since the U.N. embargo was imposed.

Erbakan said Turkey, like Libya, suffered from terrorism and accused the West of undermining Ankara's fight against Kurdish guerrillas through its attacks on Turkey's human rights record.

``The West wants to divide Turkey,'' Erbakan was quoted as saying by Anatolian. ``The expression it uses for this is human rights. However, Turkey is more advanced than the West as far as human rights is concerned.''

Amnesty International this week accused Turkey's powerful security forces of commiting human rights abuses knowing that the civilian authorities would rarely challenge them.

The Turkish military has waged a bitter 12-year battle with the separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), fighting for autonomy or independence in the southeast of the country. More than 20,000 people have died in the conflict.

The European Parliament last month threatened to withhold hundreds of millions of dollars in European Union aid to Turkey, complaining that Ankara has not carried out promises to clean up its rights record.

Erbakan is due to travel later on Sunday from Libya to Nigeria, also rich in natural resources but under fire from the West over the human rights record of its military government.

Rough 100 days for Turkey's first Islamist PM 07:35 Oct 06, 1996

ISTANBUL, Oct 6 (Reuter) - Islamist Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan marked his 100th day in office on Sunday on a tour of outcast states Libya and Nigeria, aggravating suspicions he is out to subvert Turkey's traditional Western ties.

The outcry over Erbakan's foreign forays -- the first included a visIt to Iran that irked Turkey's NATO-ally and patron the United States -- has laid bare divisions within his coalition and obscured far more pressing domestic problems.

As a result, say political analysts, the country's first modern Islamist leader has squandered his 100-day honeymoon with the voters and appears fated to be overwhelmed by a ruling elite he was elected to overhaul.

``All this signifies that (Erbakan's) Welfare Party was not at all ready for power. They are acting as if they were still in opposition,'' political commentator Bilal Cetin told Reuters.

``I do not see another 100 days added to the life of this government,'' he said.

While talk of the Islamist-led coalition's demise may be premature, there is no doubt Erbakan himself is staggering under the weight of his own ideological baggage.

Unable to take on the secularist security chiefs, he jettisoned campaign pledges to take Turkey out of NATO, annul a military cooperation deal with Israel and expel a U.S.-led air force patrolling northern Iraq from a Turkish base.

Likewise, his promised assault on the ``rentier class'' -- coupon-clippers feeding off huge interest rates rather than engaging in productive activity -- and his pledge to introduce an economic and social Just Order have gone nowhere.

A vow to deploy ``Moslem fellowship'' rather than more troops against Kurdish rebels in the southeast has also been scrapped. Turkey's human rights record has been savaged by a new Amnesty International report.

``The problem is, they promised or sold a totally different world than the one we see now that they are in power,'' said analyst Mehmet Ali Birand.

``In fact almost all remains as it was,'' Birand said.

That the Turkey of today looks very much as it did when Erbakan took power on June 28 has been a bitter disappointment to the large chunk of Welfare voters attracted more by his promises to remake the social order than his Islamist beliefs.

Opinion polls suggest that Welfare would now be hard pressed to match the plurality of 21 percent that it won last December.

Inflation is running at almost 80 percent, with some economists predicting a run at triple-digit levels. The budget deficit has grown in the first eight months of the year, forcing domestic borrowing costs to crippling levels.

Government losses in the fight against the rebel Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) now average three soldiers per day in a fight that has cost the state an estimated $8 billion each year. More than 20,000 people have already died in the conflict.

To paper over these shortcomings, Erbakan has turned to foreign policy, primarily involving the Islamic world, to reassure the Welfare Party faithful.

The Iran trip netted a big energy deal, at least on paper, but undercut chances a sceptical Washington would ever meet Erbakan with an open mind.

He further angered the Americans with calls for regional security talks, grouping neighbours Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey -- a plan rebuffed by the other parties themselves and then shattered by Iraq's thrust into its Kurdish north.

This weekend's Libya trip, where Erbakan dismissed U.S. allegations that Tripoli sponsored terrorism as ``propaganda'' and called for boosting trade with the sanctions-hit country, can only alienate Washington still further.

Nor will matters be helped by a visit, later on Sunday, to largely-Moslem Nigeria, shunned by the West over its human rights record and its slow pace of democratisation.

However, the political fall-out from Erbakan's travels could prove even more costly at home.

Already his coalition partner, U.S.-educated Foreign Minister Tansu Ciller, has called the Libya visit ill-timed. A senior Ciller aide threatened to resign from the cabinet.

The secularist opposition parties, encouraged by signs of rebellion within Ciller's own faction, have begun openly to plot the government's downfall.

Meanwhile, the rumour mill is working overtime with word the powerful armed forces are increasingly unhappy with Turkey's course under the Islamists. Talk of a coup d'etat, however frivolous, is again in the air