AMERICAN AND IRAQI FOREIGN POLICY

More difficult, however, for the United States are the ensuing conflicts between American objectives and political expedience. For example, the American interest between promoting democracy and human rights often conflicts with the interest in promoting stability when a strategically important country has a friendly, yet authoritarian ruler. The interest in promoting economic liberalization may conflict with the interest in promoting democracy when, for example, the United States must decide whether to allow free trade, or whether to impose or maintain sanctions on a country on like Iraq. These conflicts between objectives often give rise to the most serious problems that American foreign policy faces.

Because of these conflicts, foreign policy often fails in that objectives and political exigency are far apart. Such a failure was clearly apparent in the handling of Iraq by the administration of the former President William Clinton. This failure has meant that Iraq, under its leader, Saddam Hussein,

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ernational Relations Committee Chairman Benjamin Gilman introduced legislation in September 1998 that would authorize the Clinton administration to select one or more Iraqi opposition groups to receive up to $97 million in US Defense Department equipment and military training "to seek to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein in Iraq and promote the emergence of a democratic government." While the Clinton administration initially opposed the measure (though Clinton was later to sign it) because it limited its flexibility of action over Iraq, it appeared that the Congressional Republicans, unhappy with Clinton's handling of Iraq, were offering an alternative policy. Fortunately for Clinton, Saddam again overreached himself. On October 31, 1998, Hussein ended all Iraqi cooperation with UNSCOM, precipitating yet another unanimous Security Council vote condemning Iraq and demanding that the ban on cooperation with UNSCOM be ended. When Iraq refused to change its policy, the UNSCOM inspectors left Iraq, and Clinton again began to mobilize US forces for a possible strike against the Iraqi leader. But the political situation in November 1998 was far different from what it had been during the November 1997 and February 1998 crisi
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Approximate Word count = 4097
Approximate Pages = 16 (250 words per page)

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