Recipe for disaster
For once in his life Saddam Hussein must engage with reality, writes Ibrahim Nafie
As the deadline for the international weapons inspectors in Iraq to submit their findings to the Security Council approaches, international efforts to forestall war have accelerated. Egypt has worked energetically to support and promote all initiatives seeking a peaceful solution to the crisis which is why President Mubarak was keen to meet the Turkish Prime Minister in Sharm El-Sheikh during the latter's recent diplomatic drive. Mubarak also agreed to participate in the six-nation summit the Turkish prime minister has called for.
Unfortunately, however, it appears whatever hopes such intensive efforts have given rise to are being dashed against the behaviour of Saddam Hussein who, even in the face of the massive buildup of US and British forces, seems to have changed not one iota. He remains the same man who plunged his country into war after war and who used weapons of mass destruction against Iranian forces and against his own people in Halabja. His style of crisis management is the same as ever. The leader pushes the situation to the brink with cries of defiance and without the slightest thought for the welfare of his country or its people. And the fruit of his actions? The isolation of the Iraqi people, international supervision of Iraq's sale of oil and all its purchases, the loss of territorial sovereignty over the north and south and the humiliating presence of international arms inspection teams in implementation of UN resolutions passed in the wake of Iraq's defeat in the Gulf War.
Yet while weapons inspectors are flinging open and slamming shut doors in Saddam's presidential palaces, heedless of whether he happens to be in at the time, the Iraqi president shouts victory, announces that he will crush his enemies and generally persists in the demagoguery he has perfected over so much time.
Listening to Saddam hurl accusations and throw the gauntlet at the US one cannot help but recall his behaviour towards the Arab nations that stood by his side and sought to help the Iraqi people during the ordeal their leader has brought upon them. It was Saddam Hussein who led the campaign to isolate Egypt from the Arab world following its peace treaty with Israel and who then conspired to keep it isolated in pursuit of his dream to succeed Egypt and become the leader of the Arab world. Vivid in our memories, too, are the corpses returned to Egypt from Iraq in body bags together with certificates reading "Cause of death: severe drop in blood pressure". Autopsies revealed the Egyptian workers had been killed by bullets to the head or chest. Arabs also recall a decade of war against Iran -- ten years of sapping Iraq's wealth and resources -- after which Saddam agreed to return to the situation as it stood before the war.
How often have Saddam's bombast and impetuosity needlessly stirred regional tensions? When he threatened to burn half of Israel, Egypt had to rush in to calm the situation in order to spare the Iraqi people the consequences of a possible preemptory strike. When we were working to stimulate a regional framework for collective Arab action in the form of the Arab Cooperation Council, the initial members of which would have consisted of Egypt, Yemen, Jordan and Iraq, Saddam took all by surprise and invaded and occupied Kuwait, claiming it was an Iraqi province. Then, in spite of all the efforts of the Arab League and individual Arab leaders to ward off a war, even after the "international coalition" was formed and the Security Council sanctioned the use of force to liberate Kuwait, Saddam would not listen to reason. Could there have been a more pitiful sight following his devastating defeat in that war than to watch the Iraqi leader pull out his machine gun and fire a round of bullets into the air in celebration of Iraq's victory in a stage-managed display conflicting with every reality around him. Could any behaviour be more inappropriate for the leader of a modern state or add more to the negative perceptions others have of the Arabs.
Yet, in spite of all this, Arab states tried to reach out to Iraq and to work to create a climate conducive to lifting the boycott of that nation. It was obvious that to reach the point when it would be possible to ask the major powers to lift the boycott Baghdad would have to take concrete action on certain issues pending since the Gulf War. It would have to destroy its weapons of mass destruction and it would have to release Kuwaiti prisoners of war, issue an apology to Kuwait for its actions and take measures to reassure the Kuwaiti people that no similar act of aggression would ever occur again. In order to encourage Baghdad to meet the international and regional requirements that would enable it to put the consequences of the Gulf War behind it, Arab governments began to revive their relations with Iraq and adopted a common stance opposing any attempt on the part of Washington to use the events of 11 September as a pretext for taking military action against the country in order to topple the regime. This collective position was adopted formally by the Arab summit in Beirut in March last year.
In the same spirit the Arabs continued to oppose any unilateral American action against Iraq. They insisted that the UN Security Council must issue a new resolution on the return of arms inspectors to Iraq and, in coordination with some permanent members of the Security Council, worked to ensure a two-phased process whereby should Iraq fail to fulfil the terms of the new resolution on the elimination of weapons of mass destruction a second resolution would be required to authorise punitive action. The purpose of this effort was to forestall the possibility of Washington and London seizing upon the slightest instance of Iraqi failure to cooperate with the inspection teams as a pretext to strike and to give diplomacy as much of a chance as possible. In addition, Arab states such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt, refused to take part in any way in a military operation against Iraq or to allow the US to use their territory for such an operation.
Although this refusal increased the temperature between these Arab states and Washington, they nevertheless persisted in their opposition to a strike and continued to push for a negotiated resolution under UN auspices. In so doing they felt certain that Iraq would cooperate with the UN and do everything possible to close pending files on prohibited weapons and on its obligations towards Kuwait, thereby bolstering the Arab position when it came to pressing for the lifting of sanctions. Their optimism appeared firmly grounded when Iraq announced that it unconditionally accepted UN Security Council Resolution 1441 calling for the return of the inspection teams to Iraq and that it would submit a report on its armaments programme. Hopes were raised further when Saddam Hussein announced that he would deliver an address to the Kuwaiti people on the day the report was handed over.
The ears of the world turned to Iraq on 6 January to hear the Iraqi minister of information, Mohamed Said Al-Sahaf, deliver the address on behalf of Saddam. Following a feeble apology to the Kuwaiti people Saddam justified the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990 on the grounds that it was legitimate self-defence against an American conspiracy that involved the Kuwaiti regime. He then praised the perpetrators of the recent attacks against US military personnel in Kuwait, saying "The people of Iraq salute those young men who bear arms against foreigners." The Iraqi president then went on to declare that Iraq will emerge victorious in a confrontation with the US.
Soon after the speech, which stunned everyone that had placed faith in a more realistic and conciliatory mood in Baghdad, Saddam accused the international arms inspectors of espionage. They were collecting lists of Iraqi scientists and asking questions about military camps, legitimate arms production and other issues not related to their declared purpose, he charged. Then, in an allusion to the Mongol invasions, he proclaimed that the Americans would die at the walls of Baghdad.
Clearly, Saddam Hussein still clings to a long outdated mentality. His ability to warp facts, his inability to learn the lessons of history, are indeed remarkable. He pitches his rhetoric for local consumption and Arab satellite network addicts, encouraging them to take up his war cries and help him deceive the Iraqi people and push his country for a third time into the crucible of war and for a third time into a confrontation with the world.
With US and British forces amassing in the region the situation can no longer tolerate vainglorious posturing, threats and delusions. For the sake of the Iraqi people, the regime in Baghdad must do something to demonstrate that it has changed. It is unacceptable that Saddam should sacrifice the welfare of his people and his country simply to perpetuate his stay in power. Priority must be given to the interests of the Iraqi people and their nation.
It is time for the Iraqi president to take a courageous initiative that will defuse the crisis and dispel the spectre of a war the victims of which, for the second time in just over a decade, will be the Iraqi people. This peril now looms closer than ever with reports that Baghdad has once again resorted to tampering with information and wriggling its way out of cooperating effectively with arms inspectors, undermining its credibility among those international powers that had opposed a strike on Iraq. True courage resides in the ability to make appropriate decisions based on an accurate reading of the situation. Idle heroics are a recipe for disaster.
