April 2003

Views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of the AFSC.

More Diplomats Resign;
"...a war without support at home or agreement abroad"

A veteran US diplomat, who had served at the US embassies in London, Prague, Krakow, Kiev, Belgrade and Moscow before being assigned to be a diplomat-in-residence at Georgetown University in Washington, resigned March 11 in protest over US policy toward Iraq, becoming the second career foreign service officer to do so in the past month.

John Brown, who joined the State Department in 1981, said he resigned because he could not support Washington's Iraq policy, which he said was fomenting a massive rise in anti-US sentiment around the world. "I am joining my colleague John Brady Kiesling in submitting my resignation from the Foreign Service--effective immediately--because I cannot in good conscience support President Bush's war plans against Iraq," he said. "Throughout the globe the United States is becoming associated with the unjustified use of force."

"The president's disregard for views in other nations, borne out by his neglect of public diplomacy, is giving birth to an anti-American century," he said. "I joined the Foreign Service because I love our country. Respectfully, Mr Secretary, I am now bringing this calling to a close, with a heavy heart but for the same reason that I embraced it."

-- Agence France Presse

A third US diplomat has resigned partly because of opposition to US policy toward Iraq. Mary Wright, deputy chief of mission at the US Embassy in Ulan Bator, Mongolia, cited US policy toward Iraq, North Korea, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as reasons for her decision to step down.

"I strongly believe that going to war now will make the world more dangerous, not safer," Wright, the senior-most US diplomat to step down over Iraq, said in a letter to Secretary of State Colin Powell. Wright also criticized what she called a "lack of policy on North Korea" and a "lack of effort" by Washington to try to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

-- Reuters

Robin Cook was, until March 17, leader of the House of Commons. His statement appeared in the March 18 edition of The Guardian <www.guardian.co.uk>

I have resigned from the cabinet because I believe that a fundamental principle of Labour's foreign policy has been violated. If we believe in an international community based on binding rules and institutions, we cannot simply set them aside when they produce results that are inconvenient to us. I cannot defend a war with neither international agreement nor domestic support. I applaud the determined efforts of the prime minister to secure a second resolution. Now that those attempts have ended in failure, we cannot pretend that getting a second resolution was of no importance.

In recent days, France has been at the receiving end of the most vitriolic criticism. However, it is not France alone that wants more time for inspections. Germany is opposed to us. Russia is opposed to us. Indeed at no time have we signed up even the minimum majority to carry a second resolution. We delude ourselves about the degree of international hostility to military action if we imagine that it is all the fault of President Chirac.

The harsh reality is that Britain is being asked to embark on a war without agreement in any of the international bodies of which we are a leading member. Not NATO. Not the EU. And now not the Security Council. Only a year ago we and the US were part of a wide and diverse coalition against terrorism. History will be astonished at the diplomatic miscalculations that led so quickly to its disintegration.

Britain is not a superpower. Our interests are best protected, not by unilateral action, but by multilateral agreement and a world order governed by rules. Yet tonight the international partnerships most important to us are weakened. The European Union is divided. The Security Council is in stalemate. Those are heavy casualties of war without a single shot yet being fired.

The threshold for war should always be high. The US warning of a bombing campaign that will "shock and awe" makes it likely that casualties will be numbered at the very least in the thousands. Iraq's military strength is now less than half its size at the time of the last Gulf War. Ironically, it is only because Iraq's military forces are so weak that we can even contemplate invasion.

We cannot base our military strategy on the basis that Saddam is weak and at the same time justify pre-emptive action on the claim that he is a serious threat. Iraq probably has no weapons of mass destruction in the commonly understood sense of that term--namely, a credible device capable of being delivered against strategic city targets. It probably does still have biological toxins and battlefield chemical munitions. But it has had them since the 1980s when the US sold Saddam the anthrax agents and the then British government built his chemical and munitions factories. Why is it now so urgent that we disarm a military capacity that has been there for 20 years and which we helped to create? And why is it necessary to resort to war this week while Saddam's ambition is frustrated by the presence of UN inspectors?

I have heard it said that Iraq has had not months but 12 years in which to disarm, and our patience is exhausted. Yet it is over 30 years since resolution 242 called on Israel to withdraw from the occupied territories.We do not express the same impatience with the persistent refusal of Israel to comply. What has come to trouble me most over past weeks is the suspicion that if the hanging chads in Florida had gone the other way and Al Gore had been elected, we would not now be about to commit British troops to action in Iraq.

I believe the prevailing mood of the British public is sound. They do not doubt that Saddam Hussein is a brutal dictator. But they are not persuaded he is a clear and present danger to Britain. They want the inspections to be given a chance. And they are suspicious that they are being pushed hurriedly into conflict by a US administration with an agenda of its own. Above all, they are uneasy at Britain taking part in a military adventure without a broader international coalition and against the hostility of many of our traditional allies. It has been a favorite theme of commentators that the House of Commons has lost its central role in British politics. Nothing could better demonstrate that they are wrong than for parliament to stop the commitment of British troops to a war that has neither international authority nor domestic support.

Previous Article    Next Article