Stumbling Into War

James P. Rubin

From Foreign Affairs, September/October 2003

Summary:  Why did most of the world abandon Washington when it went after Saddam Hussein? The war in Iraq could never have been an easy sell, but nor should it have been such a difficult one. The Bush administration badly botched the prewar maneuvering, presenting a textbook study in how not to wage a diplomatic campaign.

James P. Rubin is a Visiting Professor of International Relations at the London School of Economics and was Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs from 1997 to 2000.

The truth, however, is that the UN system worked. The nonpermanent council members took positions that did, in fact, reflect the views of their regional groups. The three African countries, for example, accurately represented Africa's overwhelming opposition to the war. So did Mexico and Chile for Latin America. The Europeans on the council also acted in accordance with the views of most of their neighbors. Bulgaria represented the sense of solidarity with the United States felt by central and eastern European countries and their opposition to Saddam. And the split between France and Germany on one side and Spain and the United Kingdom on the other fairly represented the split among governments in Western Europe. The lack of support in the council for the American and British position, therefore, was not a systemic failure but a reflection of international reality.

That China and the countries of the Middle East and Africa would oppose the war in Iraq could have been predicted. The real surprise was that the world's democracies did not see the importance of upholding UN disarmament demands or ending the misery of the Iraqi people. One explanation is that Bush's emphasis on personal diplomacy between leaders was not enough to win him support in democratic countries, where governments cannot simply act in complete defiance of public opinion. The United States should have deployed public diplomacy to help fill this gap, but the Bush administration's efforts on this front were lackluster. True, Powell made an impressive presentation on the evils of Saddam's regime to the Security Council in New York, but that performance was a one-off, not part of a campaign. Moreover, Powell did not provide an irrefutable case. He cited communications intercepts that suggested Iraq was hiding something and was afraid of what the UN inspectors might find. But what exactly that "something" was could only be speculated about, not identified with certainty. This is not to diminish Powell's efforts or Blair's, since both men were genuinely convinced that WMD existed in Iraq. Uncertainty is inevitable in intelligence work when investigating closed societies. But in the absence of diplomatic backing and trust from other countries, the United States needed proof beyond a shadow of a doubt. Powell's case was strong, but not strong enough.

As mentioned above, another problem was the shifting rationales for war. The evolution of the administration's arguments -- from the threat of WMD, to the link to al Qaeda, to the Wilsonian claims about human rights abuses and democracy in the Middle East -- convinced many that the American president was determined to invade no matter what. Of all of these claims, the Wilsonian argument especially might have been effective had it been argued consistently from the beginning.

The lack of coordination between the State and Defense Departments was a further problem. American diplomats emphasized the wmd argument because that allowed war to be justified in terms of Iraqi violations of mandatory UN resolutions. Meanwhile, Defense Department officials too often played up the al Qaeda link, which did not resonate anywhere outside the United States.

In fact, Rumsfeld's frequent public appearances harmed rather than helped his country's case in the court of world opinion. His blunt language may have won him a few laughs in domestic settings, but his every gaffe and insult was greeted with disgust throughout Europe. Public diplomacy is supposed to persuade, not infuriate. German officials still cannot forgive Rumsfeld's rhetorical lumping together of Germany with countries such as Cuba on the grounds that all refused to support the war. Overcoming Germany's postwar pacifism would not have been easy in the best of circumstances, but challenging Germany's core democratic values by comparing it to dictatorships only caused its diplomats to dig in their heels.

Rumsfeld's reputed disdain for NATO, the UN, and any force other than the American military rendered him particularly unsuitable to pushing Washington's case in Europe. Yet, to the dismay of many American and British officials alike, he persisted throughout the crisis in accepting interview requests and maintaining the highest possible profile. The most candid quote of the whole failed diplomatic effort came from Spain's normally reticent prime minister, Jose Maria Aznar, a crucial Bush ally, who broke precedent by complaining that in order to build a coalition, "we need a lot of Powell and not much of Rumsfeld."

Even Rumsfeld, however, cannot be blamed for the diplomatic disaster in Turkey, where parliament voted on March 1 to block the deployment of U.S. troops and thereby prevented them from opening a northern front against Saddam. Fault for that debacle lies with the whole Bush administration. Despite their professed admiration for Turkish democracy, American diplomats were just not prepared to deal with the inexperienced and rowdy Turkish legislature. Moreover, almost nothing was done to try and turn around the Turkish public, which staunchly opposed the war. Instead, the Turkish press ran frequent reports of bullying by and insults from U.S. officials, as well as their attempts to bluff Turkey with phony deadlines. At the beginning of the crisis, Wolfowitz boasted that Turkish support for the deployment of American troops was "assured." But when things began to get dicey, rather than insisting that Powell travel to Ankara to persuade key Turkish legislators one by one, both the Pentagon and the State Department relied on the Turkish military to assure a victory. Given that the measure ultimately lost by a mere handful of votes, it seems obvious that providing some personal care and attention would have made the difference. But the Bush administration failed to do this. The subsequent Turkish vote not only undercut U.S. military operations, but also emboldened smaller countries to stand up to U.S. pressure on the Security Council.

American diplomats have since lamented the fact that no serious public diplomacy strategy existed to persuade key foreign publics or at least reduce opposition. It is hard to overstate how important this failure was. Crucial votes were lost in democratic countries such as Chile and Mexico. No matter how close their personal ties to Bush were, Presidents Ricardo Lagos and Vicente Fox simply could not sell a matter of war and peace to their constituents by saying that they did not want to upset the White House or risk trade retaliation. Similarly, had public opinion not been so overwhelmingly antiwar in France and throughout Europe, it seems fair to assume that even Chirac's opposition would not have been so rigid.

The problem, in sum, was that the United States did not approach its prewar diplomacy with a coherent and comprehensive strategy. Although the use of decisive and overwhelming military force may have been his signature at the Pentagon, Powell did not convince the Bush administration to adopt a similar approach to diplomacy. Perhaps that was because Cheney and Rumsfeld would not support such a strategy. Or perhaps the administration as a whole just did not think securing international legitimacy for the war was particularly important. Whether the reason was incompetence or ideology, however, Washington's failure to maintain diplomatic consistency on its justification for war, to synchronize force and diplomacy, to plan for partial compliance by Iraq, to lay the groundwork for a second resolution, and to win over international opinion constituted a diplomatic defeat of the highest order for American foreign policy.