Ouster from Iraq likely to trigger action

Now that the United Nation's inspectors from the United States have been thrown out of Iraq, President Clinton is under enormous pressure to act, according to Bruce Jentleson, a professor of political science and director of the UC Davis Washington Center in D.C."Without the scientists doing the routine inspections, Saddam Hussein can become more effective at developing a cache of biological weapons," says Jentleson, an expert in Middle East foreign policy. "The immediate goal of any military action would be to get Iraq to bend and make diplomatic concessions allowing the inspectors to return."Diplomacy, at times, needs force to make it effective. Iraq is pushing the United States very hard because it doesn't think there are as many countries supporting U.S. policy toward that Arab country as there were prior to the start of the Gulf War in 1991, says Jentleson.Jentleson served in the Clinton administration as a special assistant to the director of the State Department's policy planning staff and as a member of one of the Middle East peace process negotiating teams. Jentleson also has written extensively on U.S. policy toward Iraq. He says few U.S. foreign policy strategies have gone so far awry as the decision to support Iraqi leader Hussein throughout the 1980s.