Haaretz Editorial Sunday,
December 20, 1998

After three days of massive bombing,
it is still too early to judge the efficiency of the strikes against Saddam Hussein. The United States, which led the effort, and Britain, which joined in, hoped to achieve three declared goals:

[1]to lessen Iraq's ability to produce weapons of mass destruction;

[2] to reduce Iraq's military threat to its neighbors;

[3]and to force Saddam to allow free access to UN inspectors.

In addition, the U.S. hopes to remove Saddam's regime and lay the groundwork for the ascendance of an alternative government.

The declared goals of the operation are worthy of international support since weapons of mass destruction, wherever they are found, constitute a real danger to civilian populations.

A regime seeking to develop these weapons, and more so one that has proved its readiness to use them, cannot hide behind claims of self-defense. The international community has built appropriate tools for the supervision, limitation and destruction of these kinds of weapons.

But these tools can only be effective with the cooperation of the targeted country. Iraq, which has signed multi-lateral treaties for limiting the spread non-conventional weapons, has shown that it has no intention of honoring them, and at the same time that it feigns cooperation with UN inspectors, it finds infinite ways to deceive them.

But the justice of the goals are no proof of the efficacy of the means employed to achieve them. Limited destruction of military targets in Iraq may be important from a tactical perspective, but it already raises serious doubts about the renewal of inspections. The Iraqi threat is still in place.

The international repercussions already felt as a result of the operation are no less dangerous than the danger presented by Iraq itself. The profound disagreement between Russia and the United States places the ratification of the START-2 treaty for dismantling nuclear weapons in danger, for example.

Broad public oppositionin the Arab world to the attacks compromises American relations with that part of the world. And the sparring taking place between some European nations and the United States over the Iraqi question endangers a vital alliance among them that was designed to address all kinds of other global problems.

Israel removed itself from the current round of conflict by announcing that it is not involved in the dispute. This position, which largely prevents it from openly supporting the attack on Iraq, still does not remove it from the sphere of danger.

As if to prove this, Patriot missile batteries, whose usefulness is hotly debated, were placed in sensitive areas of the country, and the Home Front Command heightened its preparedness.

Israel must contend with the need to withstand an Iraqi missile attack, and there is no dispute in the Middle East toward which Israel can remain indifferent, but that is not to say it must become actively involved.

The current decision, like past ones not to participate in operations against Iraq, is a wise one. Israeli involvement is liable, in the best case, to burden the U.S. and Britain's freedom of action. In the worst scenario, it could widen the confrontation between the U.S. and the Arab world.