In the heat of this past summer, Vice President Dick Cheney and some others close to the president argued for war to overthrow Hussein and eliminate the threat of his suspected weapons of mass destruction.
Seeking the return of weapons inspectors or U. But Secretary of State Colin L. Powell counseled that the best road to Baghdad actually went through U. Rumsfeld sitting at a conference table in the White House Situation Room. Security Council. Along the way, there were behind-the-scenes efforts to defuse the crisis: an improbable mission to Baghdad by an Arab diplomat who suggested exile to Hussein, a failed bid to get Hussein on the phone with former South African President Nelson Mandela.
There were key moments behind closed doors when the diplomatic momentum shifted, such as the Mexican U. And there were the very public pronouncements of Bush, Cheney and Hussein that alternately reassured and frightened the world.
The resolution that finally passed was a diplomatic compromise, a textbook demonstration of the extent of U. The United States won international legitimacy for its confrontation with Baghdad, the likely backing of key allies if war comes, and their help rebuilding a post-Hussein Iraq. Other nations also got what they wanted most: confirmation of the Security Council as the premier global authority to deal with international crises, and a process that gave peace a final chance.
More than any other time in memory, the United States used its global dominance to intimidate rather than persuade. Threats of unilateral military action, coupled with the knowledge that the U. Although the United States, too, was forced to soften its stance, and engage in dogged, patient negotiation, the result was a triumph of a new kind of American assertiveness based as much on political, economic and military dominance as it was on shared values or the quality of its arguments.
