Carnegie Reporter, Vol. 2, No. 3 | Career Ambassador: Thomas R. Pickering, page 3

SK: I’d like your personal take from the perspective of a man who’s spent his whole life in diplomacy and who was the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and who obviously respects the notion of the larger world community. When it came to Iraq, I think many people had the sense that the U.S, said, “We’ll go it alone,” and that would have been true even if Britain hadn’t joined us. Now, in the peace, can we afford to go it alone?

TP: I don’t share the view that either we had to go it alone or should have gone it alone to begin with. But the fact is, we spent an awful lot of time, or people in the administration did, railing against the international community and the U.N. So the notion that we were going to get the United Nations and other countries to come and help us with Iraq at a fairly late date was pretty farfetched.

The second problem was that, I think, in the end we spent a lot of effort, especially on the part of the Secretary of State, over a day or two of preparation, trying to explain our position as to why we thought Saddam Hussein was a menace when I would have hoped that we would have been explaining it for ten months ahead of time. I agree, he was a menace and I certainly agree that it’s nice to have him gone. But I think that if we’d done more to prepare and present our case, we would have had the U.N. with us going in and we would have had the U.N. with us coming out.

If you spend a lot of time around the U.N., you know it’s far from perfect and its faults are out there and quite glaring in many cases. On the other hand, it has a terrific leader at the present time in Kofi Annan. The Security Council can work, I believe, if properly put together and dealt with, but that requires a different kind of approach than we experienced in the last year. We often tend to forget that the “U.N.,” especially in the Security Council, is the member states of the organization, not some gigantic monolith operating on its own.

“We often tend to forget that the ‘U.N.,’ especially in the Security Council,isthe member states of the organization, not some gigantic monolith operating on its own.”

SK: I want to ask you a question about the current National Security policy of “preemptive strikes.” It’s a policy about which there’s been really little debate in this country, though it does seem to be the policy of the day. Do you think it needs to be debated? Or should we just accept it?

TP: Of course it needs to be debated. I believe, in fact, that there are strong justifications for a preemptive strike if you feel someone is about to launch a serious blow against you or your people, at home or overseas. However, I think that anticipating that as a possibility and then invoking a doctrine of preemptive strike creates a serious problem because if the U.S. acts as if it’s the only country that’s allowed to do this, it’s hardly likely to sit well with the world community.

It also opens the door to the possibility that everybody else will, for good or ill, reach the conclusion that an enemy or putative enemy is about to strike them and go ahead and use that as a basis for launching an aggression against that enemy or a preemptive attack. That kind of doctrine is an invitation for international anarchy. And I don’t believe that as a doctrine, either we or the larger world community would find that very palatable or very efficacious. It cries out for more careful definition than has been given to it in the National Security Strategy. Is it merely a concise, careful and slight extension of self defense under Article 51 that is clear to all; or is it a “particularistic doctrine” which only the U.S. can use; or is it an invitation to international anarchy?

SK: I want to ask you a couple of short, targeted questions on subjects about which you have great insight since you served as ambassador in these countries. Israel, for example. You were ambassador to that country at a rather pivotal moment. Today we seem to be at another pivotal point, about which there are widely differing opinions. Some observers say that they are the most optimistic they’ve ever been and others say they are more pessimistic than ever about the prospects for peace. What’s your view, especially in light of the conclusion in your report that the war would open up a real opportunity for Middle East negotiations?

TP: We did link the two, Iraq and the Israel-Palestine question, and used our report as an opportunity to say that the region is important, that regional security is important. We said that there should be a forum established to work on regional security. And by that, we meant that many of us have spent a lot of time thinking about and discussing the critical contribution that could be made to Middle East peace following Iraq. Iraq is a game-changer, in a way. We moved Iraq from being one of the pivotal Arab countries aligned against Israel to one under much more benign control. So the end of Saddam, I think, opened the door to a different perspective.

In an interesting way—and very much contrary to people’s expectations about him—Israeli Prime Minister Sharon has begun to see that point and to respond to it. Whether he has a vision of a Nixon-in-China role for himself or for resuscitating or rebuilding his own reputation, which has
been severely tarnished by events in the past, I don’t know. But whatever his motivation is, I think some of the steps that he has taken are truly laudatory and are worthy of our continuing encouragement.

The fact that he’s actually used the word “occupied” to characterize the Israeli military presence in Palestinian areas and that he’s taken steps to move out of Gaza are positive actions on the Israeli side. And there have also been changes on the Palestinian side. What I would call the marginalization of Arafat, the role of the new Prime Minister, Mahmoud Abbas, who seems to be willing to take on the terribly difficult issue of violence and trying to control Hammas—even though he hasn’t been one hundred percent successful, we can hope for continu-ing progress.

Even more importantly, I think the most significant game change in the region has been the fact that President Bush has seen the urgency, the value, the importance and, indeed, the necessity, of his own personal role in working on this particular problem in the Middle East. He’s been out in the region. He’s talked to both leaders very straightforwardly. He’s made his commitment about staying involved. These are the kinds of things that have, in the past, and I think will in the future, make for real change in the Middle East.

So out of an awful situation, in this terribly bleak period, there are at least some hopeful signs. We all have to be guarded about that, though. I certainly am. But I think, nevertheless, some of the things that I mentioned do represent change and are what we ought to encourage and work for because there have been so few offerings of that kind over the last year.

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