The United Nations Security Council must now make two decisions on Iraq, but the Bush administration is focusing on only one. So far as President Bush is concerned, the big question is whether he can convince the council that Iraq is in "material breach" of its resolution on disarmament. But if the Security Council refuses to authorize an Anglo-American invasion, it is going to face a second question: Will it withdraw the UN inspectors from Iraq?
If the inspectors stay, the administration will confront an unprecedented situation: A unilateral U.S. invasion would not only constitute war against Iraq. It would mean making war on the United Nations by threatening the lives of inspectors who remain at work in and around Baghdad.
The United States can't use its veto in the Security Council to force the inspectors out. Their activities in Baghdad are already authorized under existing resolutions. Because no new resolution is required to keep them in Iraq, there is nothing the United States can veto.
We have been here before -- in 1998, when Saddam Hussein refused further cooperation with the inspectors. The Clinton administration then persuaded the United Nations to withdraw its inspection teams before proceeding with a punitive bombing campaign. This decision did not come easily, with Russia agreeing only reluctantly.
But it will be much tougher to obtain a withdrawal order this time around. Chief UN inspector Hans Blix has just announced a new agreement with Iraq that promises far greater cooperation, and France, Russia and China have made it clear to Colin Powell that they want to give this agreement a chance.
The American task is complicated further by the fact that Germany is presiding over the Security Council for the month of February. Chancellor Gerhard Schröder is Europe's most emphatic opponent of an invasion. George W. Bush has responded to this policy disagreement by transforming it into a personal quarrel. There is currently a deep freeze in the two leaders' personal relationship -- just when Schröder's cooperation is most needed to remove the inspectors.
Which returns us to our initial question: Can the administration be taken seriously in threatening military action that might kill UN inspectors?
For all the intelligence of our "smart bombs," there can be no guarantee against terrible blunders once an attack on Baghdad begins. American planes managed to hit the Chinese Embassy in Yugoslavia, and to kill Canadian troops in Afghanistan. Another military misstep would have disastrous consequences in an age of media diplomacy. CNN would transform a single hit on the UN mission into a searing indictment of U.S. unilateralism.
The consequences would be profound at home as well. Recent polls indicate that less than half of Americans support an invasion without Security Council authorization. Will this support diminish further if we begin bombing sites where UN officials may be at work?
Even the most hawkish hawk should be appalled by the prospect. But the administration has yet to confront it publicly. Perhaps it supposes that, when push comes to shove, the Security Council will simply cave in and quietly remove the inspectors before American troops begin their invasion. Perhaps it hasn't looked this far ahead in the diplomatic chess game.
Only one thing is clear: The Security Council would be within its rights to stand its ground and insist that the inspectors keep working. Absent a "smoking gun," it is entirely reasonable for the rest of thecouncil to allow Blix to test the credibility of his recent agreement with Hussein. To withdraw precipitously at the first sign of superpower displeasure would profoundly compromise the integrity of the United Nations for a long time to come.
To justify an invasion, it is not enough for the United States to insist that it already has enough evidence of a material breach. It must also explain why such a breach gives it the authority to threaten the lives of the inspectors -- the very people who are trying to obtain the proof necessary to convince the rest of the world community.
Bruce Ackerman is professor of law and political science at Yale University.
