Saddam and who else?

To mention only a few: at a 1978 Arab summit in Baghdad, he steamrollered the majority of Arab states into ostracising Egypt because of its bid for peace with Israel; he was the aggressor in the 1980-88 war with Iran, which cost hundreds of thousands of lives on both sides; he invaded neighbouring Kuwait in 1990 and set fire to its oil wells before being driven out by US-led international forces; and he has since played a ludicrous cat-and-mouse game with the UN and the US over Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. Throughout, he has ruled his own people with an iron fist, using poison gas against the Kurdish opposition at one point.

This, however, is still no excuse for the US and Britain to act on behalf of the Iraqi people and try to overthrow him. The two Western powers are conspiring with the fragmented Iraqi opposition abroad -- some 16 factions -- to topple Saddam. The US administration, with the approval of Congress, has allocated nearly $100 million to this end.

One would have expected the leader of the new world order to uphold the basic tenets of international law, foremost among them non-interference in the domestic affairs of other countries. The change of leadership is a matter for the people of every country to decide freely. No one should argue that Saddam is too strong to be deposed by domestic forces. The world has seen many equally dictatorial and well-entrenched rulers booted out by their peoples. Uganda's Idi Amin, Romania's Nicolae Ceaucescu, and Iran's Shah Mohamed Reza are examples. The Anglo-American effort sets a very dangerous precedent in international relations: Saddam today, someone else tomorrow.

President Hosni Mubarak has predicted the failure of the effort. He told the French newspaper Le Figaro in an interview last week, "Any action of this sort will not produce any result unless it is carried out inside Iraq by people who live there. As for those who live outside, there is nothing they can do."