Posted on 04/02/2003 6:44:05 AM PST by MeekOneGOP
Is Hussein trying to force a settlement?
If tactics don't work, he wants to die an Arab hero, experts say
04/02/2003
LONDON – Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, faced with invading forces and round-the-clock bombardment, is pursuing a political strategy designed to turn world opinion against the United States and force a negotiated settlement that leaves his regime in power, experts say.
If that plan fails, analysts believe, Mr. Hussein is determined to cement his place in the history of the Arab world by meeting his death as a valiant martyr who stood up to the hated infidels from the West in the name of Islam.
It is for this reason, experts say, that the normally secular Mr. Hussein – long at odds with religious fundamentalists in the Middle East – Tuesday called for a "holy war" against the powerful United States and British armies beating at Baghdad's door.
Abdel Beri-Atwan, editor of the London-based Arabic newspaper Al Quds , said Mr. Hussein's embrace of radical Islam is ironic because militant believers detest him because he fought a long, bloody war against the Islamic leaders of Iran and because he established a permissive, nonreligious society in Iraq.
"Saddam's political strategy is based on representing himself as a champion of the Arab and Muslim worlds, and he is enjoying the role of the little David challenging the mighty Goliath," Mr. Beri-Atwan said. "That is the role he loves. He always wanted to be recognized as a hero in the Arab world. He is enjoying his achievements so far."
Mr. Beri-Atwan said the Iraqi leader is determined to make up for his Army's pitiful performance in the first Persian Gulf War in 1991 and wants to make this conflict so painful for the invaders that they are willing to accept a political settlement.
"He wants high British and American losses and high Iraqi civilian losses, and he wants to divide the international community so that eventually the Americans accept an honorable exit that would be put in place by the United Nations," Mr. Beri-Atwan said. "He thinks this can happen the same way American public opinion forced them out of Vietnam."
In this way, the part of Mr. Hussein's political plan aimed at the West is designed to eventually capitalize on the pre-war split between the invading countries – primarily the U.S. and Britain – and the world powers that opposed the war, including Russia, China, Germany and France.
Although President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair have vowed to press on until Mr. Hussein's regime is toppled, some analysts believe there is at least a slight prospect that the Iraqi dictator's political strategy could succeed if he manages to rally Iraqis behind him and hold off the invading forces.
'Maximizes his chances'
"The strategy he is using maximizes his chances of survival," said Dr. Rosemary Hollis, director of the Middle East Program at the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London. "He is gambling that it could turn into such a nasty guerrilla war that the Americans will tire of it. He will go underground – no one knows if he's dead or alive – and when the Americans go, he resurfaces."
The whereabouts of Mr. Hussein, who has been seen only on videotape from Iraqi state television since the war began, remain unknown. Top Iraqi leaders who have appeared publicly say he is alive and directing his country's war effort.
Dr. Hollis said Mr. Hussein's strategy explains why the Iraqi leader has refrained from using any banned chemical or biological weapons to slow the American and British advance or to attack Israel. To do so, she said, would cause an immediate shift in world opinion that would shatter any chance to reach his political goals.
"Don't forget that even the French said if he uses banned weapons, or if they are found, they will join the fight," she said. "Instead he has focused very much on the defense of Iraq, playing to Iraqi national pride, rather than to his Baath Party identity, and he's emphasizing that these are foreigners invading."
The U.S. and British strategy, Dr. Hollis said, has helped Mr. Hussein profit from this approach because he is able to tap the rage ordinary Iraqis feel about the constant bombing of Baghdad and other cities.
Other Middle East specialists say that if the American forces become bogged down outside Baghdad for an extended period, the likelihood increases that Mr. Hussein could survive in power because of a U.N.-brokered truce.
"He has read the reluctance of the U.N. to endorse the war as constituting the possibility they will eventually come to his aid," said Professor Gordon Campbell, a Middle East expert at the University of Leicester in Britain. "I don't think that's an altogether foolish possibility. It would be the U.N. calling for a truce and negotiations as a result of a standoff around Baghdad. It's quite clear Britain and American wouldn't be prepared to listen to that at present, but it becomes a possibility as the military progress is slowed."
Standing among Arabs
He said that even though many Iraqis hate and fear Mr. Hussein, it is conceivable that he – like his role model, Soviet leader Josef Stalin – would be mourned if he is killed by the invading forces.
Middle East scholars who have studied Mr. Hussein's career say they believe a large part of his strategy is designed to augment his standing in the Arab world even if he is driven from power.
He has adopted a political strategy designed to polish his own image as an Arab hero rather than implement a sound military strategy to repel the U.S. and British forces, said Gwyn Prins, an Iraq specialist at the London School of Economics.
"Saddam is focused on what he has been focused on for the last 12 years, his place in the mythology of Arab nationalism and Arab resistance to the West," Mr. Prins said. "He is seeking his martyrdom in a way that will wipe out memory of his attacks on his own people in the past by presenting himself as the Arab leader who redeems the humiliation of the Arab people at the hands of infidels for the last 100 years."
Mr. Prins said to enhance this image, the Iraqi leader has formed alliances with Palestinian terrorist groups willing to send "martyrs" to Iraq to launch suicide bomb attacks against U.S. and British troops.
"This is not a military defense of Iraq against an invading army. This is the creation of another layer in this mythology of victimhood, which has been developed in the Arab world for at least the last three generations," Mr. Prins said. "The view is that everything evil comes from outside, from somewhere else."
The approach seems to be bearing fruit, he said, because even educated Iraqis who hate Mr. Hussein often say they hate the invading foreigners even more.
E-mail gkatz@dallasnews.com
Could this be an historic first negotiated settlement via Seance? :O) . . .
ROFL ! Sometimes I wonder ! . . .
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