A rchive Date
[ 22-01-2001 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Iraq ]
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[The Gulf war + 10 years, and Saddam's still smiling
By ERIC MARGOLIS
Contributing Foreign Editor
January 21, 2001
To mark the 10th anniversary of the 1991 Gulf war, a jaunty, cigar-puffing, rifle-firing Saddam Hussein presided over a six-hour military parade in Baghdad. The beaming Iraqi strongman proclaimed himself victor of the Mother of All Battles.
Saddam has a point. It's hard to discern winners from losers in the black comedy and tragi-farce of the 1991 oil war and its aftermath. Iraq, a smallish nation of only 22 million with a World War I-quality army, provoked the fury of the U.S. and Britain by invading their protectorate, Kuwait, yet managed to survive the biggest military assault since World War II.
Iraq's invasion of Kuwait was not part of a nefarious plot to seize Mideast oil, as George Bush Sr. claimed, but a typical tribal raid provoked by an intolerable insult to honour. Arguing over money Kuwait had loaned Iraq to fight Iran, Kuwait's boorish crown prince told Saddam words to the effect of "Kiss my butt." Worse, the prince then offered to cancel the debt if Saddam sent Iraqi war widows to Kuwait.
An enraged Saddam ordered his army to invade Kuwait and loot it. Just previously, America's ambassador to Iraq had advised Saddam the U.S. would "take no position" in a squabble with Kuwait. Saddam saw this as a green light from Washington to punish Kuwait. After all, Saddam had been a close American ally in the long war against Iran.
President Bush seized on the invasion as an ideal way to cut Iraq down to size and eradicate its primitive but still dangerous nuclear/chemical/biological weapons programs. Some Mideast specialists believe the U.S. lured Saddam into war. Whatever, Saddam could not pull out of Kuwait under U.S. pressure without losing his grip on power. So he hunkered down, wrongly believing Russia would prevent the U.S.-led coalition from attacking.
Bush bombed Iraq, then the Arab World's most modern nation, with a living standard equal to Greece, back to the 17th century. Subsequent U.S.-British air attacks, which continue to this day, made the rubble bounce.
Kuwait was liberated and made safe for its disco-dancing oil sheiks. But the Saudis and Gulf emirates were forced to accept permanent U.S. military bases, and to nearly bankrupt themselves buying U.S. and British arms they couldn't use.
The Americans and British didn't overthrow Saddam in 1991 because they needed him to keep running Iraq, an artificial, unstable, eternally rebellious nation created to serve Britain's colonial interests. If Saddam fell, Iraq, with the Mideast's second largest oil reserves, would splinter into Sunni, Shia and Kurdish regions, then be carved up by neighbouring Iran and Turkey.
The Arab Stalin
Better Saddam, the Arab Stalin, running Iraq than some unknown general, or worse, the wild Iranians with their subversive ideas that the region's vast oil wealth should serve all its people, not just a tiny oligarchy of western-backed oil sheiks and generals. Shias and Kurds, who were urged to rebel against Baghdad, were abandoned to Saddam's vengeance.
Iraq's people have suffered horribly from U.S.-British sanctions, and from Saddam's stubborn refusal to allow Washington to control Iraq through so-called "UN arms inspectors" - who turned out to be a front for U.S. and Israeli intelligence. Comically inept attempts by the U.S. to stage coups against Saddam were mercilessly crushed by his secret police.
According to the UN, 500,000 Iraqi children have died as a direct result of decade-long sanctions. When asked about this, U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright memorably replied, "It is a price worth paying."
However, sanctions are crumbling as the world begins normalizing relations with oil-rich Iraq. Intense efforts by the U.S., Britain, and Israel to keep Iraq isolated are faltering. Though Arab and Iranian leaders detest Saddam, and despite his brutality and blunders, he remains a hero across the region because of his defiance of America's Mideast oil Raj.
America's ferocious punishment of Iraq has brought hatred of the U.S. in the Muslim world and provoked attacks against its interests. Thanks to the Gulf oil war, and the Clinton Administration's total policy alignment with Israel, the U.S. is increasingly seen by many of the world's 1.2 billion Muslims as a determined enemy.
Meanwhile, Saddam keeps thumbing his nose at the U.S. and now faces the son of Bush, who, in turn, may end up facing the sons of Saddam. No matter who rules in Baghdad, Iraq will remain, to paraphrase Churchill's assessment of Germany, "either at your feet or at your throat." So long as nuclear-armed Israel and populous Iran are enemies, Iraq will strive for weapons of mass destruction and dominance in the Gulf.
The Clinton administration tried to assassinate Saddam, then, in frustration, dropped concrete-filled bombs on Iraq. Washington couldn't decide whether to kill or keep Saddam. Meanwhile, Iraq has become America's sixth largest source of imported oil.
In 1942, Hitler observed that once he conquered the Soviet Union, he would put Stalin - "the only man who knows how to deal with Russians" - back into power. Saddam, the Arab Stalin, no doubt knows this story and that's while he's smiling in Baghdad's winter sunshine.
Eric can be reached by e-mail at margolis@foreigncorrespondent.com.
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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