A rchive Date
[ 19-01-2003 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Iraq ]
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[http://www.canoe.ca/Columnists/mansur_toronto.html
There'll be no curtain calls for Saddam
By SALIM MANSUR - For the Toronto Sun
January 16, 2003
LONDON, Ont. - The only element of speculation in respect to Saddam Hussein's future, if President George W. Bush does not go soft in his resolve to disarm the Iraqi dictator or bring a regime change in Baghdad, is on which of three possible endings to his long, murderous act the curtain will fall.
Saddam may consider himself most lucky if the final curtain means being able to flee like Mullah Omar, the notorious Taliban leader in Kandahar, or Osama bin Laden, ahead of his vengeful countrymen. Or he may consider himself still lucky to get arrested and be transported, like Slobodan Milosevic, the Serb dictator, to face justice at The Hague.
Saddam's nightmare is facing the curtain as Nicolae Ceausescu, the Romanian dictator, did in 1989 when shot by soldiers of his own army; or as the curtain fell on Benito Mussolini, the fascist Italian leader, in 1945, who was arrested and executed by partisans, his mutilated body publicly displayed to cheering crowds.
The facts have long been clear about the record of Saddam's tyranny.
His regime is a combination of Nazi and Stalinist systems of rule - utterly ruthless and genocidal, aggressive, expansionist and opportunistic - its coercive powers secured by his Tikriti clan and tribal members.
Britain released an official dossier on Saddam's crimes and human rights abuses in November, 2002, and nothing in it was new. The list of disappeared, displaced, fled, exiled or dead is in the millions. Torture is routine, fear is oppressive and no internal dissent is allowed.
Saddam survives because of his ruthlessness, and the complicity of external powers, including those in the West, based on immoral and cynical calculations of national interests.
Since 9/11, however, most people in liberal democracies, including Canada (except for the incurable cynics, skeptics and those who have an inexplicable pathological resentment towards the West, and the United States in particular), will agree that the world would be a better and safer place without Saddam.
The disagreement then is on the means to achieve his removal, and the costs and consequences that may follow.
But the longer Saddam remains in power the more the cost mounts, and the price will be paid by Iraqis.
The recent disclosure about North Korea possessing nuclear arms makes the case for removing Saddam even more persuasive and urgent.
Hence the reluctance to pre-emptive regime change, where it exists, may be related to an inflated fear of the costs in human lives and political instability both within and outside Iraq.
The rational, and perhaps also moral, answer to the dilemma is that costs are multiplying and will become prohibitive at some future date should Saddam, like Kim Jong-il of North Korea, acquire nuclear arms. Therefore, his removal from power as soon as possible will minimize that escalating cost.
There is no guarantee an Iraq free of Saddam will not collapse momentarily into some level of anarchy. This is the wages the Iraqis might have to pay for the long years of suffering tyranny that has bred in them fear, suspicion and animosity of one another.
But unlike Afghanistan, Iraq has resources, an exceptionally skilled population and a sense of history to build a new future consistent with democratic values.
This means a policy of regime change in Iraq should not be the be-all and end-all on the part of the United States and its allies.
What is demanded, in addition to the use of force, is a sustained commitment in assisting Iraqis, as in the case of Germany and Japan after 1945, to build a new Iraq that may accelerate democratic change in the Middle East.
There is a tremendous yearning on the part of the young, the women and the long-suffering population of the region for freedom from home-grown tyrants.
In removing Saddam, the U.S., Britain and other allies will also make amends for having contributed to his survival for so long.
All peace-loving people everywhere should be cheering for this outcome.
Salim Mansur is a professor of political science at the University of Western Ontario. His column appears alternate Thursdays. He can be reached at smansurca@yahoo.ca.
Letters to the editor should be sent to editor@sunpub.com.
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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