Show 8A Standard-Examine- r Saturday Nov 24 1990 Standard-Examine- r Editorials tea A y 7r ( Thatcher missteps force resignation Pp Bon VoYaSe carraitf BennerT! reign as Great Margaret Thatcher began her 1 Britain’s prime minister quoting from a medieval poem: “Where there is discord may we bring harmony” She abided by that philosophy Thursday with her swift response to parliamentary disharmony The Thatcher era ended in Britain with her sudden and startling resignation Characterized as “The Iron Lady” she bowed in the true spirit of her political life with a defiant laughing speech that admitted no regrets of For 1 1 years Thatcher was England’s standard-beare- r conservatism dismantling socialism battling unions and making longtime friends of Presidents Reagan and Bush She came up with the concept of privatizing England’s bloated and inefficient industries even before Reagan proposed his version of the plan in Congress and smashed England’s powerful unions that had a foothold in the British Labor party Margaret Thatcher Britain’s longest-servin- g prime minister this century transformed British politics and was a tower of strength in the Atlantic Alliance But after the challenge to her leadership Tuesday her aura of invincibility began diminishing It had been expected that she would not survive the second ballot of an internal party election for Conservatives urn wmirs immomm Thatcher’s public support had slipped dramatically in recent months Leading to her undoing were high inflation high interest rates and an tax reform program that introduced a poll tax That caused her Conservative Party to fall behind Labor in the polls for 16 months rr5WWWE SWMUDANDBtfD FoSMENSo LET'S make oUR university X ° The state of domestic affairs and relations between Britain and Europe were her undoing Thatcher’s skepticism about rapid European integration though often sensible prompted three resignations from her cabinet over the years Her sharp opposition to a timetable for setting up a European central bank and unified currency triggered the current challenge to her leadership Kjoo° PROUD ° BV accepting tusboptoe WEEKUEWER flCME The “Iron Lady” has been the closest and most loyal ‘I’d US ally in Europe Her departure portends the loss of a say this makes the recession official special relationship between the United States and Britain and raises questions about the strength of support to be expected toward the US Persian Gulf policy However all three challengers for her job have stood squarely behind Thatcher’s dispatch of British troops to the Mideast Margaret Thatcher’s tenure as prime minister will not end officially until next week when her Conservative Party elects her successor With her strong will and determination to “go on and on” into the 1990s it’s doubtful that her presence in Great Britain politics is over Point: Cost of getting rid of Saddam’s war machine high The cost of war with Iraq may prove severe: thousands of Americans could lose their lives and j US hostages could be placed in further jeopardy But the cost of a “peace” with Saddam Hussein that is of forswearing military action will likely be 'even more horrific: i Kuwait will disappear Every day Iraqi armies stay in Kuwait is a victory for Saddam He has annexed the country tens of thousands of Kuwaitis have been forced from their homes now occupied by Iraqis and Palestinians Kuwait’s government has been disbanded its electrical and other support ‘infrastructures are being tied inseparably to Iraq Kuwait is disappearing before our eyes In another there may be no Kuwait to liberate I The international coalition will begin to fall 'apart As Saddam’s neighbors become convinced that the United States is not willing to risk war to Stop Saddam — and that they might have to con- -- putting regional peace efforts on the back burner Jay Kosminsky tinue to live with him — they will be more likely to appease him by suggesting a “diplomatic solution” such as a partial withdrawal from Kuwait control over Kuwait’s offshore islands or greater Iraqi control over Kuwait oil reserves Saddam will emerge a hero radicalizing the Arab world If Saddam eventually accepts a “diplomatic solution” after withstanding months of pressure from the United States and its allies he will be transformed into a hero at home and throughout the Arab world The message — particularly among the more radical Palestinians — will be that force pays off This will embolden those advocating a “military solution" to the conflict or other conflicts in the region perhaps Arab-Israe- li for decades Saudi Arabia will be destabilized If Saddam emerges with his army intact Saudi Arabia will have no viable way to maintain its security Either the Saudis will have to accept a US military presence — which eventually will undermine the legitimacy of the regime and make it vulnerable to fundamentalist forces — or the Americans will go home and Saudi Arabia will be under Saddam’s thumb Saddam will become a nuclear menace If Saddam is not stopped now he will come back at us harder in coming years By early next year he is expected to have a workable biological weapon (which spreads anthrax plague and other fearsome diseases) within two years he could have nuclear weapons and within five he may have a ballistic missile capable of delivering these weapons against long-ter- m the United States The United States and its allies will be held hostage The US and its allies rely on oil from the Persian Gulf If Saddam survives with his army intact he effectively will control the oil of the Saudi peninsula or 45 percent of the world's reserves This is not a matter of another quarter per gallon at the pump It is a question of economic survival Saddam must leave Kuwait Ultimately his war machine — at least his weapons of mass destruction — must be destroyed To achieve these objectives the United States is likely to have to resort to force If America hesitates today it inevitably will face Saddam again — only this time armed with nuclear weapons This is the cost of inaction it is the price against which the cost of war must be measured Jay Kosminsky is deputy director of defense policy studies for the Heritage Foundation Counter : Saddam can be defeated without going to war It makes no sense for the United States to take offensive action against the Iraqi forces in the Gulf "now or in the near future Taking such a step with- -' out clear provocation would destroy the consensus at home and fracture the alliance in the Gulf Without support in the United States and the UN President Bush cannot undertake a bloody campaign in the Gulf successfully Violating the spirit if not the letter of the US Constitution and the UN Charter is not the way to lay the foundation for the new world order Ironically there is almost no pressure from home or abroad to go to war in the Gulf Both the American people and our partners in the Gulf coalition want to give the congressionally endorsed and blockade and forte deployment to Saudi Arabia time to achieve its objectives Those who support offensive action in the near future argue that Americans lack the patience and wallet to support a protracted military deployment to the Gulf and that the international coalition cannot hold together for more than a few months As President Bush stated last week “There is a licking of the clock" domestically and internationally that limits the time available to wait for Sadaction dam Hussein to bend to This argument is contradicted by the history of l - UN-sanction- non-milita- Lawrence J Kerb the past 40 years When it comes to patiently supporting overseas deployments the American people are second to none It took 40 years of deploying more than 300000 troops in Europe to break up the Soviet empire Since 1953 40000 Americans have sat in Korea a leader to contain North Korean’s Kim much in the mold of Saddam Americans also fought bloody wars in Korea and Vietnam for 15 long years suffering 500000 casualties and 100000 deaths Does this sound like a nation that demands its leaders bring the Iraqi crisis to quick and decisive conclusion? The coalition that Bush masterfully put together in the Gulf shows no desire to go on the ollensivc nor have any of its members set a deadline on their participation In fact some of our partners like Syria Egypt and France have indicated that they will not join in offensive actions against Saddam and all of our major partners except Great Britain have asked us to allow time to let the embargo work The costs of the intervention are easily managed The Pentagon must pay the salaries of its personnel wherever they are Nearly all of the equipment and material for our deployed forces has already been bought and paid for The incremental costs of the operation $1 billion a month for 200000 people can be offset by reallocating some of the $50 billion in operating funds the armed services routinely spend each year on military operations around the world and from the billions of dollars our allies are' contributing Indeed the Saudis can offset the entire cost of our operation with the additional income they are receiving from higher oil prices For the first three months of the operation Bush managed the operation skillfully He moved about 200000 people 65 ships 800 tanks and nearly 1000 planes into an area about 10000 miles from home And he put together a defensive coalition of nations that added another 100000 troops 1000 tanks 300 planes and 75 ships n Then suddenly without warning without from Iraq and without the support of Congress the people and the international community he doubled the size of the US lorcc and an proso-catio- nounced that there would be no troop rotations His aides say that the president did this because Saddam is not taking our current deployments seriously To get Saddam to respond the president needs to show him we are there for the long haul It’s clear that the Iraqi leader thinks he can outwait us But with each passing day Iraq grows weaker airmilitarily Within six months its Soviet-mad- e craft will have to be grounded for lack of spare parts To demonstrate our patience and to regain the support of Congress the American people and the world community the president should use the occasion of his Thanksgiving visit to the troops to announce that the troops arriving over the next two months will replace those that have been there for six months Rotating 300000 troops out of Europe for 40 years forced the Russians to leave Eastern Europe without a single American casualty Surely it’s worth spending even a few years rotating 200000 American men and women in an out of the Gulf to force Saddam to leave Kuwait without suffering thousands of American casualties Lawrence Koih is a seiner fellow in foreign policy studies at the lirookmgs Institution |