WASHINGTON, March 20 (UPI) -- The UPI think tank wrap-up is a daily digest covering opinion pieces, reactions to recent news events and position statements released by various think tanks. This is the sixth of several wrap-ups for March 20.
The National Center for Policy Analysis
(The NCPA is a public policy research institute that seeks innovative private sector solutions to public policy problems.)
Trade sanctions don't work
by Bruce Bartlett
DALLAS -- Hawks and doves may be deeply divided on the use of military force against Iraq, but there is one area on which they may have come to agree: trade sanctions don't work. The hawks believe that sanctions will never dislodge a determined dictator like Saddam Hussein, while doves now feel that the human cost of sanctions may be too great. Consequently, there needs to be a serious rethinking of sanctions policy.
Trade sanctions have been the offensive line of American diplomacy since at least the 1930s, when they were unsuccessfully used against Japan. They allow diplomats to show their displeasure toward aggressor nations in a way more emphatic than simply withdrawing an ambassador, but without committing the military. That is why the State Department likes them so much. They add an element of force to diplomacy short of armed conflict.
Unfortunately, there is virtually no evidence that sanctions have ever worked. There are few items of international commerce of which the United States has a monopoly. Hence, unilateral sanctions are doomed from the start. Target countries simply buy what they need elsewhere. The only losers are American businesses, which lose sales to foreign competitors.
Multilateral sanctions have a better chance of success, but are hard to maintain. Eventually, they break down, especially when the target country has significant deposits of tradable commodities, such as gold, diamonds or oil. Such things are easily sold on international markets and difficult to trace. There are always those willing to buy sanctioned goods in return for big profits, and countries willing to give them sanctuary.
In the case of Iraq, the nation has ample reserves of petroleum and does not lack for methods of selling it on the world market despite U.N. sanctions. Indeed, much of the oil Iraq sells is done so legally under a U.N. program that allows limited amounts of oil to be sold to purchase food and medicine.
Since 1997, when the program began, and 2001, Iraq received $51 billion from legal oil sales, according to a U.S. General Accounting Office report. However, the report also notes that Iraq obtained another $6.6 billion during this period through smuggling and illegal surcharges.
Despite increased efforts by the United States and the United Nations to limit illegal oil sales, they appear to be increasing. Last month, the Wall Street Journal quoted a senior White House official as saying Iraq is getting $3 billion per year from them. As time has gone by, the process has become well organized via an illicit pipeline to Syria, and trucks and railroad tankers across the borders with Jordan and Turkey.
Of course, the smuggling and illicit sales go both ways, with Iraq receiving goods and materials banned by U.N. sanctions. These include arms, chemicals and machinery capable of manufacturing weapons of mass destruction.
Although the lot of the Iraqi people has improved under the food-for-oil program -- daily calorie intake has virtually doubled -- there are still many deaths blamed on the sanctions. Children and the elderly are the main casualties, resulting mainly from a lack of medicines. It is commonly estimated that 60,000 Iraqis per year die because of the sanctions. Historian Walter Russell Mead notes that sanctions are killing twice as many Iraqis every year as died in the first Gulf War.
One reason for the lack of medicines, which can be imported legally, is that Saddam Hussein and his henchmen routinely resell them on the world market in order to line their own pockets. The profits are used to provide them with the latest Western luxuries and to maintain their lavish lifestyle. By all accounts, Saddam Hussein lives like a king and has never suffered at all from sanctions.
A recent study by the Institute for International Economics found the Iraq sanctions to be pretty much a failure across the board. They didn't get Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait back in 1991. They didn't force him from power and haven't brought about compliance with U.N. resolutions requiring disarmament. Indeed, by all accounts, Saddam Hussein has continued to build up his military despite the sanctions.
As the IIE study puts it, "the sanctions have not deterred Iraq from continuing efforts to develop chemical and biological weapons and delivery systems, nor have they muted Hussein's aggressive threats against his political opponents."
The United States has also suffered from sanctions. The loss of sales by U.S. companies to Iraq is probably trivial. But we suffer heavily from higher energy prices resulting from restrictions on Iraqi oil production and sales. In the absence of sanctions, Iraq could be producing two or three times more oil per day. However, the main cost of sanctions may be the sense of complacency they gave the world for too long, as everyone thought the Iraqi threat was contained.
(Bruce Bartlett is a senior fellow with the National Center for Policy Analysis.)
The Reason Foundation
Flimsy shields: On the logic of putting yourself in harm's way
by Sara Rimensnyder
LOS ANGELES -- No doubt there were human shields in Iraq over the past few months who were completely sane. No doubt by Wednesday, they had all gone home. Meanwhile, new recruits were still arriving: as of Wednesday, 30-odd South African activists were trying to get into Iraq via Jordan.
With war anticipated at any hour, these guys were just in time. Otherwise put, they were tragically late: They won't have the several weeks of interaction with the Iraqi government that drove dozens of activists back home. In the words of one former naïf, speaking to The Christian Science Monitor: "A lot of shields were thinking it was black and white, and that we were on the side of good like Che Guevara. But it's not black and white at all."
One could argue that the media haven't given human shields a fair shake, homing in on the fruitcakes and reveling in quotes like this one from an Iraqi Foreign Ministry official: "We have a bad impression of the human shields. Some of them are crazy."
But doesn't there seem to be something objectively insane about volunteering to be a human shield, at least at this late date, however sure you are of the unjustness of invading Iraq? Aren't there a million-and-one far better ways to devote your life to peace and human well being than to throw yourself into a missile shower?
As blogger and Reason magazine contributing editor Charles Oliver has pointed out, to the extent that the U.S. military cares, places like orphanages already have human shields, otherwise known as orphans.
I scoured the news, wanting to understand the psychology that advances such a futile course of action. I was heartened to learn that many shields left the country when they realized (rather belatedly) that their presence wouldn't prevent war. Among the diehards still sticking around, I expected to read about loners, who had little to lose by traveling to Iraq. But that's not what I found; plenty were leaving behind jobs and families.
Take this woman, part of the South African crew: "Do you think I am not shit-scared of this? I am leaving my son whom I love dearly and would do everything to protect. My insurance policy won't pay out for a death that is war related and if the insured have put themselves at risk. I have a lot to lose by leaving."
I wonder if someday, in the event of her death, her son might ask himself why his mother was so quick to sacrifice the personal for the political.
But perhaps the most cynical dismissal of human shields has come from within Iraq. In a post titled "Human Shields Bashing #124," Iraqi blogger "Salam Pax" reacts to news that shields have left hotels to assume their posts as civilian protectors:
"No, no, just stay in your hotels, buy souvenirs and make fun of the backward ways of these Iraqis, hope you sent all your friends postcards telling them about the pita and tahini you have been eating while strolling around Baghdad, you tourists. Did you take enough pictures of children begging in the streets to show your friends back home how much you care about the plight of the poor in the third world. Bet they were all shaking hands and promising to see each other at the next 'worthy cause' party."
Such a caustic reading can be tempting, but when you're confronted with the fact that human shields actually do put their lives on the line, it's hard to feel anything other than despair.
(Sara Rimensnyder is Reason's assistant editor.)
