Regards, Ivan
Posted on 01/28/2003 6:05:26 PM PST by MadIvan
In the run-up to what looks likely to become known as the First Gulf War, American planners were haunted by a "nightmare scenario". That was, that Saddam Hussein would suddenly see sense and start acting in his own best interests.
By simply withdrawing from Kuwait he could preserve his military strength, claim a moral victory and establish himself as the new Nasser, the champion of the Arab world.
Similar concerns must now be troubling hawks in the Bush administration. Saddam has everything to gain, including life itself, from moving to pro-active co-operation with the weapons inspectors.
But now, as 12 years ago, there seems very little chance of an outbreak of common sense. Fortunately for the war party and sadly for those who dread intervention, Saddam has his own idiosyncratic views about what is good for him.
The confrontation between Saddam and the rest of the world has now moved beyond details of what horrors Iraq may or may not have in its armoury. It has become, as Britain's man at the UN, Jeremy Greenstock pointed out, a question of attitude.
For Saddam to satisfy George Bush, Tony Blair and Hans Blix, he will have to rewire his personality. The inspectors, as they made clear in their UN report, are looking for the same kind of co-operation that transitional South Africa showed when it invited monitors in to oversee the voluntary dismantling of its nuclear weapons programme.
Peace in Iraq requires Saddam Hussein to become F W de Klerk. The transformation will not be easy. Saddam is a dictator's dictator. He has Stalin's patience and cunning, Hitler's incomprehension of the value of human life and Kim Il Sung's insatiable fascination with himself.
His vanity is boundless. Forget the inescapable portraits. Every seventh brick in the Disneyworld recreation of Babylon jerrybuilt on the foundations of the old site is stamped with his initials.
He reserves the right to control every aspect of the life of his subjects, even following them into the bathroom. Fastidious, like the Führer, he decreed a few years back that women should wash twice a day.
He makes decisions alone. The Revolutionary Command Council, the chubby men in Ba'ath party fatigues and sycophantic moustaches shown on television meeting with the leader disband as soon as the cameras have gone.
The well-spoken mouthpieces of the regime would almost certainly defect if to do so would not automatically result in the annihilation of their families.
Saddam's isolation is logical. Who could know better than himself? He is unburdened by any real knowledge of the outside world having rarely left Iraq and bases his calculations on his own direct experiences.
Even now he may doubt Washington's resolve to get him. In 1990 he told the US ambassador to Iraq that America did not have the stomach to fight a war that might cost tens of thousands of lives, a view that can only have been reinforced by the failure of the allies to press on to Baghdad.
He may also be comforting himself with the belief that France, Russia, China and Germany can prevent Bush going to war. If it does come to battle, it is possible that he believes his own sub-Churchillian prediction.
"If they come," he said last year, "we are ready. We will fight them on the streets, from the rooftops, from house to house. We will never surrender."
The noises from Iraq since the inspectors's reports - by turn shrill and placatory, reasonable and threatening - suggest that Saddam has still not understood what is being demanded.
Humiliations are nothing new for him. He has suffered many and presented them as triumphs. Perhaps this is one too many. Or perhaps he has made a different calculation.
Hopes of averting a war rest on the reasonable assumption that Saddam wants to preserve his power or at least his life. But that is not necessarily so.
The bleakest interpretation is that he has made the megalomaniac decision that his place in history is assured and it is time to go out with a bang.
Regards, Ivan
I wonder at what point the weapons inspectors will realize that they have become human shields? If they all decide to go back to New York for "consultation" will the Iraqis let them leave?
I'd bet 2:5 odds that as soon as the war starts, Saddam's own troops pour concrete down the entrance to his bunker.
If the goals could be accomplished without war, only a faction truly bloodthirsty could opt for it.
And yet, that is what Bush and Blair essentially are accused of: bloodthirstiness.
The goal is not merely the removal of Saddam; it is also the removal of the coterie surrounding him consisting of family and associates in the Baath Party.
Not removing the whole snake is no different from the errors of Gulf War I.
Sorry Saddam. We haven't sent tens of thousands of troops for a no-show. You're toast.
Liar liar pants on fire.
He was never diarmed, and you know it. The UN inspectors were still finding and destroying stuff in 98 when they were kicked out.
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