Editorial: Hard lessons learned from the Gulf War

As the year of the Second Gulf War draws to a close, there is reason to believe that the conflict might, indeed, have made the world a safer place.

Not because a tyrant who possessed weapons of mass destruction has been toppled; and not because a despot who gave succour to international terrorism was finally captured in the most humiliating of circumstances. Whatever the claims of the United States and Britain, it is now surely clear that Saddam Hussein's arsenal included no such weapons. And that the very nature of his secular dictatorship rendered Baghdad unsympathetic to the ambitions of al Qaeda's Muslim extremists. If the world is a safer place, it is, paradoxically, because the war also taught the victor, the Bush Administration, some harsh lessons.

These stemmed not from the battlefield - the conflict was short and the cost relatively light - but from the aftermath. Ongoing resistance to the US occupation is extracting a heavy toll, both in lives and the degree of American belligerence. In the lead-up to the war, President George W. Bush blatantly challenged the authority of the United Nations and long-accepted tenets of international law. In the wash-up, he has had to go cap in hand to those he scorned, urging them to accept a bigger role in the building of a stable Iraq.

This transformation is hugely significant for the course of world affairs. The American invasion of Iraq breached rules of sovereignty that have governed international relations for centuries. It also dismantled a system of multilateral co-operation that has functioned, largely successfully, since the formation of the UN. For those in the White House, the outrages of September 11 provided carte blanche to intervene militarily in any state that supported terrorism or was developing weapons of mass destruction. Iraq was not such a nation. But having failed to capture Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, Washington badly needed an alternative ogre.

With the notable exception of Britain, most nations rightly decried the invasion of Iraq as unprovoked and unnecessary. They could not deter President Bush. He achieved a quick battlefield triumph, but a bloody aftermath. And with every American death, the fervour underpinning the American doctrine of limited sovereignty has ebbed away. There was, significantly, a welcome dearth of sabre-rattling in the President's response to Saddam's capture.

Finally, it appears to have dawned on Washington that it has blundered into a quicksand and that it does not have the resources to extricate itself, or to enter lightly into other such adventures. Nor, indeed, is there any longer the popular will for such a policy. The latter is particularly problematic for a President who sees his support dwindling as an election approaches. Quite incredibly, given the initial level of support for the invasion on Main St, Mr Bush may yet find, like his father, that an overwhelming victory in the Gulf triggers only his downfall. In Britain, the reputation of Prime Minister Tony Blair was similarly tarnished, perhaps beyond repair. He ended the year facing a fresh onslaught for "deceiving" Britain over Saddam's weapons arsenal.

On the surface, New Zealand appeared to emerge well from the war. It upheld the principles of multilateralism by opposing it, yet was listed as a country eligible for rebuilding contracts in Iraq. There was, however, a more important outcome - the increasing divergence between New Zealand and Australia. On two major issues this year, Iraq and the Star Wars missile defence programme, Australia sided with the US. Our Government was critical of both initiatives. As a result, and to our cost, Wellington's defence relationship with Canberra is becoming barely credible. So for New Zealand, too, there was a sobering aftermath to the Second Gulf War.


Herald Feature: Iraq