Political review: Saddam hands PM winner

There was no disguising the mixture of satisfaction and relief on the Prime Minister's face.

"A triumph of diplomacy," boomed Helen Clark on Tuesday after Baghdad backed down and agreed that United Nations weapons inspectors should be allowed back into Iraq.

Saddam Hussein's concession interrupted the beating of war drums in Washington (though only briefly) and provided some vindication for countries, such as New Zealand, which had strenuously argued for diplomacy ahead of military force.

It also took the wind out of the sails of bellicose Opposition parties back home who had accused Clark of being soft on Saddam, as evidenced by her refusal to endorse the United States' threat of unilateral military intervention which prompted the backdown.

As usual, what appeared to be a foreign policy issue had fast become a domestic argument.

At stake is something National and Act claim has always been their territory - the notion that only the centre-right can be trusted to ensure that New Zealand stands by its traditional allies when the going gets tough.

Much to those parties' chagrin, Clark stole their mantle by contributing SAS troops to the American-led forces in Afghanistan and was rewarded with a glorious summit with President George W. Bush.

The photos of smiling faces and handshakes in Washington back in March were regurgitated by Labour for the July election campaign.

The gloss is now fading. Unlike the black-and-white, right-versus-wrong, good-versus-evil nature of Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, the arguments over what should be done about Iraq are far more vexed for Clark and Labour.

Clark is constrained by her party's pacifist instincts; National and Act are not, and can outbid her in the battle for pro-American sentiment. However, the war-like noises coming from the Opposition benches ignore the fact that sentiment has been diluted by Bush's extremism.

Public opinion in New Zealand has yet to be convinced that Iraq poses an imminent threat sufficient to justify Washington's euphemistic talk of "regime change" in Baghdad.

If Labour is on the right side of public opinion, National says it cannot claim to be a member of the "American Club" when its membership is part-time.

Is New Zealand now any less of a "very, very, very close friend" as a result of Clark distancing herself from Bush - and has she jeopardised a free trade agreement with the United States?

Having traipsed the corridors of power in Washington this week, Foreign Minister Phil Goff insists not. He says New Zealand's reservations are shared by many US allies and within the Bush Administration.

Securing a free trade agreement is something that will take years and "trading body bags for a deal is irrational, unwise and immoral".

Still, New Zealand's position on Iraq will hardly change the mind of hawks in the Bush Administration, who have always put this country on the outer as a consequence of the anti-nuclear policy.

Clark is trying to strike a balance between Washington thinking and domestic opinion.

On the one hand, she is trying to look tough on Iraq with a rapid and positive response to the request for New Zealand to contribute medical personnel and communication experts to the team of weapons inspectors.

New Zealand will also support any Security Council resolution which ultimately sanctions military force against Iraq if Saddam fails to deliver on his promise to allow the weapons inspectors to do their job.

New Zealand might also be willing to offer concrete assistance to a military operation conducted under UN auspices, possibly a medical team or logistics support.

On the other hand, Labour will not send frontline troops, whereas National and Act would. Clark has also castigated Bush publicly for failing to provide fresh evidence that Iraq is manufacturing weapons of mass destruction, even though Bush's staring down of Saddam provoked the so-called diplomatic triumph paraded by Clark.

The problem for Labour is that Bush's gung-ho, we-know-best, go-it-alone unilateralism towards removing Saddam is at loggerheads with the party's multilateralist stance on foreign policy.

Labour's manifesto is replete with references to the UN as the problem-solving agent for global friction.

Invading Afghanistan post-September 11 could be justified on the grounds of self-defence; invading Iraq to change the Government would flout international law. Labour might as well rip up its manifesto.

Noting that no link has been established between al Qaeda and Baghdad, Clark and Goff argue Bush risks weakening the global coalition in the fight against terrorism.

Invasion could result in tens of thousands of civilian casualties. It risks destabilising neighbouring Middle East states. And far from suppressing terrorism, it could incite it.

So much for arguments of principle. Labour's position on Iraq is also driven by cold, hard domestic realities.

First, many Labour rank-and-file have questioned their Government's participation in the war in Afghanistan. Those reservations surfaced during a foreign policy workshop at last year's Labour Party Conference, despite delegates' reluctance to say or do anything to splinter the image of unity.

Second, Clark is acutely conscious that sending the SAS into Afghanistan helped destroy the Labour-Alliance Coalition. She is now in coalition with the ex-Alliance remnant, the Progressive Coalition, whose two MPs supported that deployment. However, one of those MPs, Matt Robson, has strongly held views on the post-Gulf War treatment of Iraq by the US.

Backing military action, even if mandated by the UN, would put a severe strain on his loyalty to the Coalition even though there is the safety-valve of the "agree to disagree" clause in the Coalition agreement between Labour and its ally.

So far, Clark has been able to keep all the balls in the air in this juggling act. But as she said last week, when it comes to Iraq, there is still an awful lot of water to go under the bridge.

Further reading
Feature: War with Iraq

Iraq links and resources