Volume 1 - Iraq Watch

Perceptions of Threat and ChallengeThe striking feature of the Quartet’s members wastheir inward focus. They were not cosmopolitanand their insularity hurt their ability to appreciate orassess what other countries saw as their interests andhow Iraq’s behaviour might create conflict. The Quartet,including ‘Aziz, had a mindset of Iraq versus theworld, rather than Iraq as part of the world. Even theglobetrotting ‘Aziz remained focused on Saddam’swill and his exclusive power to determine Iraq’scourse.With the partial exception of Tariq ‘Aziz, the Quartethad only a limited and hazy view of the UnitedStates, its interests and how policy was formed anddriven in Washington. At no stage did the Quartetdemonstrate a strategic concept of what the USwanted with Iraq, where common ground and differencesreally lay, and the nature of the challengethe US or Coalition presented. Nor did they have astrategy for dealing with the West, apart from tacticalgames at the UN.unilaterally on Iraq’s deteriorating relationship withthe West, which was coincidental with such change.They did not seek to capitalize on Iraq’s potentialsignificance in global trade through its place inthe oil market. The Quartet never deliberated overglobalization as a concept and how to position Iraqwithin it.The Quartet’s view of the rest of the Arab world wasalmost as limited. Most members of the Quartet hadnegotiated for Iraq with other Arab states, but theQuartet had no strategy for building an Arab constituencyfrom 1996 to 2003. The Arab world was notconsidered a resource for Iraq, either to bolster effortsagainst Iran or to act as intermediaries with the West.Instead, the Quartet seems to have shared Saddam’saversion to some Arab states, Saudi Arabia, in particular,and to some extent Egypt. The Quartet was notpan-Arabist like Nasser or Ghaddafi. Yet ‘Ali Hasanwas surprised in 2003 that no Arab state protestedagainst the attack on Iraq.Regime StrategicIntent• Saddam shared this myopic view. Saddam had aview of US goals, but it was wide of the mark: hesaid he believed the US had achieved all it wantedin the Gulf after Desert Storm and that a continuing“Vietnam syndrome” about casualties precludeda full invasion of Iraq. Only in very late 2002 didQuartet members Ramadan and Tariq come to profoundlydisagree with Saddam’s view of US intentionsand conclude that Iraq’s ability to manageCoalition pressure was collapsing. But Ramadanand Tariq have since been concerned to portraythemselves as, by then, too frightened and powerlessto avert Saddam’s collision with Washington.• Saddam may have been closer to the mark in hissense that ultimate US policy in Iraq was Regimechange. According to ‘Aziz, Saddam decided at thetime of Irangate (the covert supply of missiles toIran in 1987) that the United States could not betrusted to support Baghdad. ‘Ali Hasan said thatin the 1990s Congressional calls for the overthrowof Saddam meant that there was no prospect of astrategic dialogue with Washington.• The Quartet had little appreciation of global changesince the end of the Cold War or how it affectedIraq’s interests and options. Instead, they focused• Instead, the Quartet’s concept of who were Iraq’s‘friends’ harked back to Baghdad’s perceptionof the different circumstances of the Cold War(Russia); of the UN as the pivotal player (Franceand Russia) and (very rarely) Malaysia, which wasat the time Chairman of the Organization of theIslamic Conference.Regime Strategic GoalsThe Quartet had a common set of strategic goals,which were driven by Saddam. All Quartet membersprioritized security against Iran before all else.They saw Iran as bigger, hostile and that it had inthe years since the Iran-Iraq war overtaken Iraqin WMD development. The Quartet recognized noprogress toward containing Iran would be possiblewithout first getting out of sanctions.• The Quartet did not publicly advocate a particularstrategic role for Iraq. Privately, it was not a proponentof regional hegemonism, whether over Kuwait,or the region, nor did it consider the use of WMD tothat end. Ramadan and ‘Aziz had thought the attackon Kuwait was folly and Ramadan opposed it in theRCC.71