Saddam Hussein

Editorial

(The main source for the information in this article is The Reckoning: Iraq and the Legacy of Saddam Hussein by Sandra Mackey. The author has lived in the area and has written The Saudis: Inside the Desert Kingdom, Lebanon: Death of a Nation, Passion and Politics: The Turbulent World of the Arabs, and Persia, Islam and the Soul of a Nation. She has written for the country's leading newspapers and journals and has been a frequent commentator on the Middle East for CNN.)

(These opinions reflect the opinions of the publisher but not the editor.)

The purpose of Middle East policy from 1908 to the present has been and must be to keep a supply of oil flowing to provide energy for every nation on earth. To hear a discussion of Iraq without a consideration of oil is to ignore what is most important. Britain took over and governed Iraq after World War I to guarantee the supply of oil, because Iraq had no social unity, no sense of oneness since it was created around 1920, and it has no sense of unity today.

There is a strong tradition of urbanism in central Iraq, but tribalism rules the rest of the country. Islam split dissenting Shia from orthodox Sunnis, but these two have exchanged their roles in the past eighty years, the Shia becoming orthodox and friendly to Iran, and the Sunnis becoming secularist and opposed to Iran. Then, there are the Kurds with their own language, culture, and identity who are children of the mountains that rise to more than twelve thousand feet. The Shia are the most common group but have not had governing power commensurate with their numbers because of their approval of the Islamic revolution of Iran. The Sunnis became the ruling sect, and in charge of the army, to preserve Iraqi independence. Antagonism between these two groups is intense.

Hussein has united the nation by brute force with murder, burning of villages, poison gas, biological poisoning, bulldozing, strafing from the air, draining the marshes of the Shia, and any other dreadful action he could find. When he decided to exterminate the Shia of the south, he drove nails into the head of the leader of the opposition after he set fire to his beard; on the other hand, if he is taken away, there will be bedlam. The understanding of this by the elder Bush, his advisors, and all those who cooperated in Desert Storm, is the reason Hussein was left in power. Hussein in power, with all his faults, was the best alternative. To this day, no one knows how to unite Iraq, and, if this cannot be done, removing Hussein is of little value. The country will break apart and so will the control of oil. Iraq possesses 15 percent of the oil in the Middle East.

When oil flowed in Iraq, "Baghdad stood under a roaring waterfall of money." From 1973-1978 income from oil rose from $1.8 billion to $23.6 billion.

Casting off the last traces of languor, Baghdad projected the same image of frenzied construction activity and tone of supreme confidence as did Riyadh and Kuwait City. On the streets, double-decker buses imported from London traversed al-Rashid Street; hawkers sold black-velvet paintings of Elvis Presley in a white sequined suit; and women from the villages, clutching plastic pocket-books stuffed with dinars, pushed their way into the crowded gold souks.

The eight-year war between Iran and Iraq, or Khomeini and Hussein, was between a theocratic state in Iran and a secular state in Iraq, a test of will between two tyrants. The goal of Khomeini was to drive the West, and the United States in particular, from the Islamic world. He branded the United States the Great Satan and held fifty-two Americans hostage for 444 days. To further his goal in the Middle East Khomeini courted the Shia of Iraq, the largest group in Iraq, inviting them to transfer their loyalties. The bulk of the Shia remained in the trenches to fight and die for Iraq.

Iran was under the rule of clerics, but Hussein believed Islam was responsible for the backwardness of the Arabs. Further, he was hostile to the Soviet Union, calling Communism a "rotten, atheistic, yellow storm." Because of the hostility of Iraq to Islamic radicals and to Communism, Presidents Carter and Reagan saw Iraq as a counterweight to Iran. Said Carter, "We see no fundamental incompatibility of interests between the United Sates and Iraq." In November 1984, under Reagan, the United States and Iraq restored diplomatic ties.

In July 1986, Hussein tried to end the war with Iran by strangling its delivery of oil, which involved the invasion of Kuwait. This invasion was properly condemned by the United States and its allies, but there were historic claims of Iraq to Kuwait, which went back to 1939 and were hinted at in 1922. Kuwait was created to create a buffer zone for Iraq against invasion of wandering Bedouin chiefs from the south.

The invasion of Kuwait in 1990 demanded an invasion by Western powers to guarantee the supply of oil. Hussein never had ambitious goals beyond the borders of Iraq, and he looked for a peaceful resolution of Arab and Jewish relations, but, with the fourth largest army in the world, he sat atop the third largest proven reserves of oil in the world and looked across the border at Saudi Arabia with the world's second largest proven reserves of oil. To solve the poverty of his country because of the war with Iran was no justification for his invasion, so the West decided properly that the control of the world's oil supply could not be allowed to fall into the hands of one man, the dictator of a minor country, whose behavior was dreadful. The economy of the world could not be allowed to rest in the hands of Saddam Hussein.

The long-standing problem with Hussein after his defeat in the Gulf War has been his refusal to allow inspectors into Iraq to determine if he has weapons of mass destruction. Because of his refusal, sanctions have been imposed which have reduced his country to poverty. Time has reversed Iraq so that a country that was wealthy and a resort for entrepreneurs looking for investments is now a country where people carry kerosene lamps through houses without electricity. A thirteen-year-old is no larger than an eight-year-old. Dying children lie on beds without sheets, cough without medicine, stare at the ceiling as doctors adjust electrodes made of buttons.

These conditions result from Hussein's refusal to allow inspectors into Iraq. This is so, but some qualifying factors are relevant. Hussein developed weapons of mass destruction as a result of the Gulf War. If attacked, he will defend himself with all the weapons he can muster. He refused to allow inspectors into the country because, in his mind, he wanted to preserve his country. Also, while the citizens of Iraq know their leader is a beast, they remember a time when he gave generously to his people. The citizens of Iraq hate Hussein while respecting him, but, and this is a point not understood in Washington, they are coming to hate the United States. Rightly or wrongly, the United States is seen as the one responsible for their poverty. Madeleine Albright remarked casually that the plight of the Iraqi people is the price that must be paid for the behavior of their leader. The remark lacked sensitivity and assumed Hussein's weapons, real or imagined, were more important than the physical condition of the people.

Attacking Hussein is complicated by our support of Israel. Rightly or wrongly, we are assumed to be in favor of Israel at the expense of the Arab world. An attack on Hussein is understood to be an attack on the Arab people. The hatred of the United States by Arabs, already widespread and intense, will be greatly multiplied by dislodging Hussein, with far-reaching consequences.

It is said that Hussein cannot be trusted with weapons of mass destruction, and this is so, but true of anyone with these weapons. Iraq has never had international ambitions. It attempted bombing Israel, but that was a part of the Gulf War. Iraq is not so stupid that it will attack Israel when that country is capable of massive retaliation. Neither will it attack the United States when they know we can annihilate them. But, if it is attacked, it will have no hesitation in striking those who strike them. The Palace Guards were not used in the Gulf War but reserved for Hussein's protection. They remain in place. If there is war in Iraq it will not be an easy victory and the casualties will be of huge numbers on both sides.

We are going to establish democracy in Iraq? Nonsense. The country is torn with rival factions bitterly opposed to each other, and hope for unity is a dream. Hussein united the country with brute force, and there is no other way for a long time to come. In comparison, Afghanistan is a picnic.

We are not to forget that the goal in the Middle East is the protection of the supply of oil for the greater part of the world. At the moment there is no substitute for the Middle East. If we create chaos in the Middle East, the effects will be felt in Europe, Japan, and any other country you care to name, including the United States.

I dislike disagreeing with President Bush and Vice President Cheney, two men I greatly admire, but I believe the resolution of the problem is to lift the sanctions and let Iraq sell oil without limit. Let Iraq become wealthy, and we shall solve our problems. As an added plus, Iraq will aid us in isolating Iran until that country has a change of leadership, which will come quickly. With a secular Iran and a secular Iraq, the Middle East will be safer. When Iran has a change of government, both she and Iraq will oppose radical Islam. This was the belief of Presidents Carter and Reagan, and the official policy of the United States.

Conclusion: With great sorrow I must disagree with President Bush.

(1) Saddam Hussein has no one to attack in the Middle East. He failed to defeat Iran, his chief enemy; he dare not attack Israel from fear of being wiped out.

(2) The probability is that he has weapons of mass destruction and will get nuclear weapons. Hussein considers them a means of defense. They would serve no useful purpose except to oppose American forces.

(3) It is nonsense to dream we can crush Saddam Hussein and then proceed to establish a united, democratic society. We can pick Tom, Dick, or Harry to be the local dictator, or president, or whatever, but any order that will replace Hussein will have to be kept in place by American power.

(4) An American occupation of an Arab country in the Middle East will be seen an affront to the Arab world, and the putting of salt into present wounds.

(5) A lot of lives will be lost with an invasion of Iraq. Hussein will bunker down in Baghdad requiring our killing many Iraqis. Hussein will response with every arsenal in his possession, and many Americans will die. The American army will have to be more than half a million men.

(6) The occupation of Iraq by the United States would guarantee a supply of cheap oil for long enough to develop an alternative supply of energy, but this happy result would be a perversion of idealistic goals. ?