UW foreign policy experts favor continued inspections

America’s best course of action in meeting its goals in Iraq is to give U.N. weapons inspectors more time, say two of the university’s experts on U.S. foreign policy and international law, assistant professors of political science Bruce Cronin and Jon Pevehouse.

“It’s a very tough issue, because you’re dealing with a very dangerous adversary,” Pevehouse says. “Saddam is a bad guy and someone who would commit aggression if he thought he could get away with it. The question is, is he worth fighting a war over? He needs to be disarmed, but we should let the inspectors have more time to ferret these things out.”

Does the United States gain anything by going to war? As an exercise of American power, says Cronin, a successful war will increase the ability of the United States to control world politics.

“In the gain column, you remove a threat to our interests in the Middle East,” notes Pevehouse. “Saddam is a tyrant, and one day, if left unchecked, he may come back to haunt us. But the loss column, in my opinion, is far more powerful.

“The bottom line is this: War is uncertain. One never knows what course it will take or what will arise because of it. Opening up that Pandora’s box is best left for the last resort.”

Cronin predicts war with Iraq would have dire effects.

“An attack will undoubtedly lead to greater international terrorism, increase anti-American feelings virtually all over the world, and destroy America’s anti-terrorism coalition,” says Cronin. “It would also cause tremendous instability in the Middle East that could lead to a regional or even global war.”

At home, war is likely to prolong the recession, drive oil prices through the roof, make it dangerous to travel abroad, make the United States into an international outlaw and will facilitate continued erosion of civil liberties, Cronin says.

There is little doubt that a war will kill thousands of Iraqi civilians and American troops, and destroy a country already devastated by a decade of sanctions, he says.