Political Science Professors Hold Panel Discussion About Military Action Against Iraq

Poll: UC not thrilled with war plans

By Craig Garretson

The Cincinnati Post

Publication Date: 10/09/2002

A day after President Bush was in Cincinnati to make his case for attacking Iraq, a panel of University of Cincinnati professors argued for prudence.

The professors held a panel discussion on the president's speech and polled about 120 students who attended it; three-fourths of the students polled are opposed to taking action without United Nations support.

Howard Tolley, a political science professor and the forum's organizer, said an attack on Iraq is the kind of reaction terrorists hoped to provoke with the Sept. 11 attacks.

"It's exactly what Osama bin Laden was looking for, to incite a holy war between the Islamic world and the West," Tolley said. "It's impossible to predict the future, but it is more likely that an attack on Iraq will generate more terrorism, not less terrorism."

The most pro-war of the panelists was Richard Harknett, a political science professor and an international relations and security expert. But even he cautioned against a unilateral attack on Iraq, urging instead for continued diplomacy backed by the threat of force.

"Coercive diplomacy is trying to get a state to do something, not using force, but — and this is the coercive part — using the credible threat of force," Harknett said. "The question that we're facing now, unfortunately, is what happens when you have to make good on that coercive threat?"

Harknett also said that the date making the Bush administration most anxious about the future isn't Sept. 11, but Oct. 4, the day last year when anthrax began turning up in the mail. The source of that act of terrorism, which killed five people and made 17 others ill, still hasn't been determined.

"We're in an age when the lethality of technology is on an upswing curve. — It's becoming easier and easier for fewer and fewer people to kill more and more people," he said.

Harknett said the only way to defend against such attacks is to take preventive action against the likely source of threats before they can be carried out — which is what Bush is attempting to do.

But Bert Lockwood, a political science professor and director of the Urban Morgan Institute for Human Rights, said this nation's Founding Fathers didn't want one person to have that much authority, making the president the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, but giving Congress the power to declare war. That has led to an ongoing struggle between the two branches — though the U.S. has used military force 234 times, war has been declared only 11 times in the nation's history, he said.

America's disregard for international treaties, such as the Kyoto Protocol and the International Criminal Court, has made others in the world skeptical that the Bush has the best interests of the world in mind when trying to find support for an attack on Iraq, Lockwood said.

Mark Mullins, a senior majoring in political science, enjoyed the panel discussion.

"I think we need to see more of this," he said . "We had a good turnout and everyone showed a lot of interest. This is something people need to talk about and think about."