We must agree before Saddam action

On the afternoon of 9 November 1990, I took my colleague the American Secretary of State across the street from the Foreign Office to Number 10 Downing Street. Margaret Thatcher liked and trusted Jim Baker and the result was as I hoped. Between us we persuaded the Prime Minister that we should go for a UN Security Resolution authorising us to use force against Iraq if that was necessary to free Kuwait from Iraqi aggression.

Today's problems are never exactly the same as yesterday's, but sometimes there are lessons worth remembering. Now, as then, the heart of the argument about Iraq is not legal. In 1990 Kuwait had asked us to join her in exercising her right of selfdefence under Article 51 of the UN Charter. She was the victim of aggression; she was entitled to our help in kicking the Iraqis out. Most lawyers on both sides of the Atlantic agreed that we needed no specific Security Council Resolution under international law.

The argument which Jim Baker and I used with Margaret Thatcher was political. We were building a coalition of states willing to join in reversing the Iraqi aggression. Most of these states were democracies; their governments needed to carry public opinion with them. This was true of President Bush Snr, faced with the US Congress, of most European governments and of the Conservative Government here, faced with the Labour Party.

We had learned one lesson from Suez in 1956; it would not have been sensible or fair in 1990-1991 to send British troops to fight Iraq against a background of bitter debates between the main parties each night in the Commons or riots in Trafalgar Square against the war. We argued that it would be much easier to build the coalition and then keep it together if we could show that we had specific up-to-date authority from the one body in the world with the power to give it, namely the Security Council.

That is what happened. We put forw a rd the Resolution at the UN. We got the necessary votes; the Soviet Union did not veto; the US Congress and the British Labour Party stayed on board. Our forces achieved their purpose and freed Kuwait. It was never at that time our aim to march on Baghdad and overthrow the government of Iraq. We could not have held the coalition together if we had changed our aim in the middle of the war.

As in 1990, the lawyers today could put together a legal justification for an attack on Iraq. Saddam Hussein has proved himself brutal, treacherous and aggressive. We could, I imagine, produce evidence of a threat from the weapons of mass destruction at his disposal. We might argue that we are entitled under international law to take out those weapons in self-defence before they are used. Or we could plausibly argue that by building up his weapons he is in such flagrant breach of the Security Ceasefire Resolution of 1991 (No 687) that the original resolution on the use of force against him (No 678) can be reactivated.

But in real life we once again need public support. It would be wiser not to rely on old texts but to get a new resolution dealing with the present scene. This would authorise the use of all necessary means, with firm deadlines and no wriggle room, to bring Iraq under effective and unconstrained international inspection. Given President Putin's present conciliatory stance, I doubt if there would be a Russian or any other veto - or serious opposition from any important country provided the evidence is clear.

But the Americans narrow their options if they insist on "regime change" without any international authority. They might manage a sudden internal coup or a quick blow from outside with results so welcome that the rest of us would forget our doubts. But it is hard to believe that a massive invasion lasting weeks would get the support it would need if its aim was simply to install a pro-western government in Iraq.

Two other steps are necessary to improve the chances of success in any operation against Iraq. First, the killings in Palestine must be brought to an end. This means a greater American willingness to use the leverage which they undoubtedly possess to change the present Israeli policies of occupation and settlement in Palestine.

In return, the Arabs would have to accept the existence of Israel behind roughly her 1967 boundaries. An American-led operation against Iraq will need at least tacit Arab support to achieve any lasting success. No Arab ruler loves or trusts Saddam Hussein; but they are cautious men. They know that night by night their peoples watch on television not Iraqi but Israeli tanks, with apparent American support, crushing their way through Arab towns and villages.

Second, we have to find some credible Iraqis to take over from Saddam Hussein and form a stable government. Neither the Kurds in the north nor the Shias in the south of Iraq could do the job by themselves. Power in Baghdad rests with the army and the Baath Party.

Maybe we are quietly building internal support for a takeover. The blow needs to be quick and complete, so that the crowds who now cheer Saddam Hussein know that it is safe to cheer the new government when he has gone. A new Iraqi government which has to be propped up indefinitely by American and British troops would be no good to anyone.

There is often tension between the world of power and the world of rules. Those who think only of power are tempted to despise rules; those fixated on rules forget that rules are useless without power. In reality, neither works well without the other.

Getting the mix right is going to be crucial in Iraq. The question is not whether we are justified in intervening in Iraq, but whether we can successfully do so. The hurdles first described are high, but not insuperable.