Back to Ambassadorial Speeches - Ambassador Moshe Arad

Interview with Ambassador Arad, Arab League Ambassador Clovis Maksoud and U.S. Senator John McCain on CNN'S "Crossfire" August 2, 1990

ANNOUNCER: From Washington, Crossfire. On the left, Mike Kinsley. On the right, Pat Buchanan. Tonight, A Mideast Madman? In the crossfire, Clovis Maksoud, Arab League Ambassador to the United Nations. Arizona Republican John McCain, Member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. And Moshe Arad, Israeli Ambassador to the United States.

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KINSLEY: Welcome back to Crossfire. We're talking about war in the Middle East, today's invasion and occupation of tiny Kuwait by its powerful neighbor Iraq. People are calling this the first post Cold War world crisis. What makes it that, of course, is oil. The price shot up 10 percent just today. We're discussing the invasion and its implications with Clovis Maksoud, Arab League Ambassador to the United Nations, Senator John McCain, Republican, a member of the House Armed -- Senate Armed Services Committee. And joining us now is the Israeli Ambassador to Washington, Moshe Arad. Mr. Ambassador, today is the day Israel gets to say, we told you so about Saddam Hussein. But aren't you worried about appearing a bit smug about what is actually a very dangerous situation?

MOSHE ARAD, Israeli Ambassador to United States: Well, we are definitely very concerned and we condemn this act of aggression. But we have seen these statement -- or listened to such statement before. And we took them very seriously. Actually we should -- we are in a position to say to the American -- to our American friends that we insisted on warning our American friends about the U.S. policy in the Middle East and that Saddam Hussein wasn't taken seriously and that there was a tendency to dismiss this as just rhetoric. I think what happened today unfortunately shows that such leaders, their statements should be given credibility and should be taken seriously. We live in a very dangerous neighborhood, a neighborhood where violence is rampant, where there are still dictators there like Saddam Hussein who think that by the use of force they can --

BUCHANAN: All right. Ambassador Arad --

AMB. ARAD: -- insert and impose their will on there --

BUCHANAN: Ambassador Arad?

AMB. ARAD: Yes?

BUCHANAN: You do live in a dangerous neighborhood. And you do take seriously the words of your neighbors. Back in 1981, I believe, the Israelis used a preemptive air strike to destroy the facility which it was believed Iraq was using to build atomic weapons, to take it out and destroy it. Saddam Hussein has threatened, if he's attacked by Israel, to burn half of Israel using poison gas. Do the Israelis think that, A, Iraq is working again on nuclear weapons? And, B, do you keep your options open with regard to a preemptive strike on their poison gas facilities and missiles?

AMB. ARAD: Well, let me say, Pat, that I think first of all the world and the area should be thankful to Israel for this preemptive act in 1981. Otherwise we would have seen this dictator from Iraq threatening the use of nuclear weapons against its neighbors and against the countries in the area. Second, I feel that we know not only and we have reason to think that these efforts continue. And the fact that President Saddam Hussein used chemical weapons already in the war against Iran and against his own citizens is only an indication that he doesn't hesitate to use unconventional weapons in order to attack his own population, its neighbors and of course Israel is very concerned about these developments.

KINSLEY: Okay. Okay. Mr. Ambassador, Ambassador Maksoud, can -- after the events of today, can you continue to say with a straight face that Israel is the greatest threat to peace in the Middle East?

AMB. MAKSOUD: Israel is the first country which has introduced the nuclear weapons. It's not a member of the Non-Proliferation --

KINSLEY: We're not talking about Israel --

AMB. MAKSOUD: Well, you are --

KINSLEY: -- nuclear weapons. What is it --

AMB. MAKSOUD: You brought the Israeli Ambassador to discuss something which is an inter-Arab dispute and therefore you are also trying to derail us from the focus that Israel is trying to exploit.

KINSLEY: You don't think that Israel has --

AMB. MAKSOUD: The temporary --

KINSLEY: -- a concern, a legitimate concern about Saddam Hussein after he's invading this tiny little neighbor of his who is a fellow Arab?

AMB. MAKSOUD: Somebody could talk about invasion. I think Israel is the master of invasionary tactics --

AMB. ARAD: Well, let me say --

KINSLEY: You are making moral judgments.

AMB. ARAD: May I come in?

KINSLEY: Yes, please.

AMB. MAKSOUD: There is a record which is replete --

KINSLEY: Go ahead --

AMB. ARAD: May I come in? I think that President Saddam Hussein has shown today that he has total disregard for any process of negotiation. Not against Israel but against a country with which it's regarded to be in friendly relation, a country which has helped Iraq actually in its war against Iran. And this total disregard for international norms of behavior between countries is only the last proof that what President Saddam Hussein is trying is to control the Arab Middle East and to get control over the power of oil in this area.

BUCHANAN: Let me ask you, Senator McCain. The key question -- one of the key questions is what Saudi Arabia will do now. If Saudi Arabia stands up on its hind legs to find Iraq and pumps oil, the price of oil won't go to 25 or $ 30 a barrel. But if the Saudis get the message that anyone that messes around with Saddam Hussein winds up without a country, they might cut back production, prices shoot up. What do you think the Saudis are going to do?

SEN. MCCAIN: I think that the Saudis will be looking very carefully to see what the United States is going and whether we are going to provide the kind of insurance and guarantees that they can't be subject to this terrific blackmail. And Mr. Ambassador, you stated that this was an inter-Arab affair. Mr. Ambassador, nothing could be further from the truth. The supply of oil through the Middle East, the very lifeblood of the world is dependent upon, we cannot sit idly by and hope that the Arab League somehow will settle this problem.

BUCHANAN: John, let me ask you another question before the Ambassador responds, just a second. Look, this is primarily more than our, it is British oil --

SEN. MCCAIN: Japanese --

BUCHANAN: -- French, Japanese, German oil. Why are there no British, French, Japanese, and German ships moving up and down the Persian Gulf? Why are there American warships, in Mr. Bush's phrase, in harm's way?

SEN. MCCAIN: There had better be fairly soon and also they had better be prepared this time, in my view, to pick up some of the tab. We're not the richest nation in the world anymore unfortunately. And they'd better be participating in every way.

BUCHANAN: Or what?

SEN. MCCAIN: Or the United States will not be the guarantor forever. This time we may be involved, but we've got to exact a price from this from our allies. And that means them sailing in harm's way as well.

KINSLEY: Why shouldn't we be exacting a price from the Arab countries which- some of which have a great deal of money for protecting the oil supplies? If- it's in our interest a little bit. It's in France's and Japan's interest a lot. It's certainly in Saudi Arabia's interest an enormous amount that the peace be protected in the Middle East.

AMB. MAKSOUD: First of all, there has never been any kind of Arab policy which has sought to interrupt the flow of oil. There has not been any Arab attempt not to provide the continuous and on going --

KINSLEY: What happened in 1973?

AMB. MAKSOUD: There was an embargo and the United States was supplying Israel and underwriting its objectives and policies without even questioning. And in that respect --

KINSLEY: So, there has --

AMB. MAKSOUD: -- we had to --

KINSLEY: You've done this --

AMB. MAKSOUD: We could not use our oil as a penalty for us, but as a --

KINSLEY: Well, whether that was right or wrong, you said you've never done it. You have done it. AMB. MAKSOUD: The embargo was a temporary policy conducted by the Arab states as a deliberate incentive for the United States at that time to open up to the Arab input in its own policy decision instead of the biased policy in favor of Israel's objectives.

BUCHANAN: All right. Earlier Ambassador Maksoud said that the President of Egypt and King Hussein of Jordan were both headed for Saudi Arabia and maybe on their way to Baghdad. When we come back, we're going to follow up on that new story.

[Commercial break]

BUCHANAN: Ambassador Arad, one of your ministers today, Mr. Arens said that this was 700 miles away and Israel really plans to do nothing. What do you think the United States should do more that it hasn't done?

AMB. ARAD: Well, in my view, the only way to succeed in trying to exercise pressure upon Iraq, apart from the military option about which I would not like to comment, is of course by a concerted economic effort to establish pressure and to tell -- send Iraq a very strong message, a concerted effort by the European countries, Japan and the United States, that in spite of the fact that they are now controlling 7 percent of the total oil production, they can have it and to insure that the economic - - that economic blockade of Iraq would be immediately installed.

KINSLEY: Mister -- Senator McCain, you know, Israel warned us about Saddam Hussein, you've been warning for months that we ought to be taking him more seriously. The Bush Administration has been ignoring that, has been actually trying to make pals with him. They felt that Iran was a bigger threat, the Soviet Union was a bigger threat in the Middle East. Isn't today's event a dramatic failure of the Bush Administration?

SEN. MCCAIN: I think it's a failure to anticipate. But could I also expand that a little bit, Michael. There's not one expert in this town, in all the think tanks, in all the brains and all the money that we spend on these people that predicted that the -- Hussein would take the action he --

KINSLEY: Pat predicted it. The New Republic has been predicting it for months.

SEN. MCCAIN: Well, I think the so-called Middle East experts that we are relying on including within and without the administration and also let me say. We have got to get the cooperation of our allies if we want this to work, what the Ambassador -- Israeli Ambassador just described.

BUCHANAN: Ambassador Maksoud, you said the king was -- they're going to go to Saudi Arabia, then they're going to Baghdad. Are they going to try to see a free, independent Kuwait established again and do you think we'll ever see it again?

AMB. MAKSOUD: I think that is the -- one of the objectives. And besides also the objectives of the various economic and -- aspects that have arisen from the uniformity now that has been achieved in the OPEC meeting where all the Arab states as well as the other OPEC countries have developed a uniform policy. I think that is --

BUCHANAN: What is the deal? That the Kuwaitis pay the -- let go on the reparations or let go on the loans and pay them for the oil they've allegedly taken from them and the other 14 billion and then they can go free?

AMB. MAKSOUD: Many of the Arab oil producing countries have indicated a commitment to reparation funds and --

SEN. MCCAIN: For what?

KINSLEY: Reparations for what?

AMB. MAKSOUD: Reparations for the consequences of the unfortunate war that has taken place between Iran and Iraq and there has been a great --

BUCHANAN: Iraq started it with an attack.

AMB. MAKSOUD: Well, as I said, we are not now in -- going into historical judgment. We are trying to make history by restoring the negotiating process that has been interrupting --

AMB. ARAD: What the Ambassador is just saying --

KINSLEY: Excuse me. Excuse me, Ambassador Arad, we are out of time. Thank you very much, Senator McCain. Thank you very much, Ambassador Maksoud. And thank you, Ambassador Arad. Pat Buchanan and I will be back shortly.

[Commercial break]

BUCHANAN: Michael, as you know, the Iraqis have been using European weapons for some of these operations. And if the Europeans don't help the United States out or get together with us in this particular crunch, I predict there's going to be -- the split's going to come between the Alliance, the U.S. and Europe itself.

KINSLEY: And you'd be for it?

BUCHANAN: Well, I would be for the United States telling them, look, we're not defending your oil forever.

KINSLEY: I absolutely agree the Allies out to do more but I think one of the reasons George -- and because higher oil prices hurt them more than they hurt us. But they do hurt us, too, Pat. And I think one of the reasons George Bush has been a little slow on the uptake here is he doesn't really feel that way. He comes from Texas. He's very palsy with the oil producers. He really wouldn't mind if oil prices went up costing American consumers billions of dollars.

BUCHANAN: Can you -- I don't believe that. You mean, he would look sympathetically on an act of naked aggression because it's going to help west Texas?

KINSLEY: Not sympathetically but he's not as alarmed by -- when they were simply trying to bully those prices up, he wasn't alarmed at all because he wants OPEC to succeed.

BUCHANAN: Well, look, that would help cause a recession in the U.S. and he don't want that.

KINSLEY: Well, I hope he understands that. From the left, I'm Mike Kinsley. Good night for Crossfire.

BUCHANAN: From the right, Pat Buchanan. Join us tomorrow night for another edition of Crossfire.