Playing in the orchestra of peace: South Africa's relations with Iraq (1998-2003)

Abstract

South Africa’s status and prestige as a country that successfully and unilaterally disarmed its weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programme enabled it to engage with the Saddam government of Iraq in the months leading up to the US-led invasion of March 2003. Following intense international diplomatic efforts, Saddam Hussein had agreed to allow UN and International Atomic Energy Agency weapons inspectors to enter Iraq in November 2002. Acting outside the UN Security Council, the US and its coalition partners maintained that Iraq continued to maintain and produce WMD, a claim refuted by weapons inspectors, including a South African disarmament team that visited Iraq in February 2003. Employing three diplomatic strategies associated with niche diplomacy, South Africa contributed to attempts to avert the invasion by assisting with the orderly disarmament of Saddam-led Iraq and by practising multilateralism. These strategies, notwithstanding the US-led invasion signalling a failure of South Africa’s niche diplomacy in this instance, provide valuable insight into the nuclear diplomacy of South Africa.