Iraq’s Miscalculation: America Goes to War : A massive attack, backed by an international consensus

From across distant phone lines came the first sounds of combat, and before long all the world knew that America and its U.N. allies were on the attack. And in the Persian Gulf all those eager young faces in camouflage stiffened in the knowledge that America was going to war and they were at the front.

And in Washington President Bush knew when he decided to authorize the massive series of air attacks on Iraq Wednesday that some casualties inevitably would be innocent bystanders and that decent people, on both sides, would be tragic victims. And he knew that the events of war have a cruel logic of their own.

But the President made a careful and defensible decision to launch a military attack after the passage of the extraordinary United Nations Security Council Resolution 678 and a thoroughly debated joint resolution of Congress. So if the precise timing of the initial air sorties was a surprise to many, the inevitability of imminent action, sooner rather than later, was not. It was coming and, now, it had come to this.

No one can say how this Operation Desert Storm will unfold or when it will end. It might trigger an unpredictable chain of events that will march across the desert and change the course of history in the region. Or the air attack may prove so devastating that the whole thing might be over sooner rather than later. At this writing, not enough facts about the military situation are certain.

But it is important to remember that the operation need not ever have happened--and to keep in mind whose fault that is. Even as late as Wednesday morning, there was still time for sanity to prevail. Both sides were poised for the showdown, but no one had yet actually lobbed the first stone. There was only a pocketful of time between the Jan. 15 deadline and the commencement of the attack Wednesday around 1:50 p.m. (PST)--but there were still a few precious moments. In that last flickering, only one thing needed to be done, and only one man could do it: Hussein. He should have pulled out.

Iraq still can pull out of Kuwait. Keep in mind that Baghdad’s position is not one around which the Arab world can or should rally, but a policy that can only divide the Arab Middle East and sow new enmities and divisions. Saddam Hussein should give up now because, as a loyal Iraqi, he should preserve what is left of his pummeled Iraq--a pummeling that was his to avoid. Perhaps many in his army will still fight hard. But the West is too advanced technologically to lose a war that vastly favors the technologically advantaged.

It is one thing to gamble and bluff, another to commit suicide.

Iraq should begin the process of withdrawal now. Its government should seize the moment and prevent further catastrophe.

There has been and will continue to be debate in the United States about the wisdom of military action, but the fact is that the triggering event was Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. Would the Iraqi army have stopped at the Saudi border had Bush not acted quickly and pledged to protect that country with U.S. forces? Ask those Kuwaitis who are still alive what they think. For that matter, ask the Saudis.

It is true that the U.S. secretary of state lobbied members of the U.N. Security Council skillfully for resolutions to support a strong response to the aggression. But he did not put a gun to anyone’s head. In the end, after an unrelenting but dispiriting effort, even the French signed off on the U.N. resolution authorizing force.

There is no ambiguity now. All the arguments, pro and con, have been argued back and forth and up and down. At this writing, the world has largely given up on the man from Baghdad. Is he still sane? Does he finally understand what is at stake? If so, there is still time to stop it. Wednesday night saw a massive demonstration of air might.

Why invite continued destruction?