Forget the Sportsmanship : What’s at issue here is regional, maybe even global security

Suppose Saddam Hussein bends to U.N. Security Council demands, concedes he made a monumental mistake by invading Kuwait and brings his army home. What then? Does the anti-Iraq coalition simply declare victory, toast itself for having stood firm against international aggression and then dissolve, allowing matters in the Persian Gulf to return more or less to where they were before Iraq’s Aug. 2 invasion?

If that’s what happens, there’s an outstanding chance that before too many years go by Iraq will once again be menacing its neighbors. Next time it will be with even more formidable weapons and the means to deliver them than it now possesses.

President Bush has referred several times to the desirability of curbing Iraq’s access to or development of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, but he has offered few specific thoughts on how that should be accomplished. Now, White House officials are starting to talk about the need to keep some U.N.-approved sanctions against Iraq in place even if the confrontation over Kuwait ends without a shot being fired.

Some may shy away from the notion of post-withdrawal sanctions, contending that it would be unsportsmanlike to go on punishing Iraq after it has backed down. Forget sportsmanship. What’s at issue here is regional, maybe even global, security. Iraq’s programs to build chemical, biological and nuclear weapons have always depended on technology transfers from abroad. If the past is any guide, it’s certain that so long as Iraq is able to pay--and it will be, once it can start selling its oil again--there will be those who are only too eager to sell it the means to make those weapons.

The frightening and infinitely dangerous prospect of an ambitious and unscrupulous tyrant being allowed to go on building up an arsenal of terror weapons demands a firm and enforceable response. Thus the need for maintaining some sanctions to keep Iraq from becoming, at least in weapons terms, a mini-superpower. Maintaining sanctions will take agreement by the five permanent members of the Security Council. It’s clearly not too soon to begin informal discussions about effecting that goal.