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DANCES WITH BEARS
Russia rooting for
a quick hit on Saddam
By John Helmer
MOSCOW - Nuri Said was the puppet prime minister
of Iraq during the 1950s, when the British pulled all
the strings in Baghdad.
When he was toppled by
revolutionary Iraqi officers in 1958, Said's mangled
corpse was dragged through the streets, much as
President George W Bush and his colleagues are thinking
of doing to Saddam Hussein, if they can catch him. Said
used to say, "You can always rent an Arab, but you can
never buy him." His end more or less confirmed that. The
Bush administration is filled with violent men with
short memories who won't have heard of Nuri Pasha, and
aren't in the frame of mind to listen to his advice.
Nuri Said's downfall was attributed at the time
to the cleverness of the Soviet Union, in part because
some of the revolutionary soldiers were communists, but
mostly because it was the Cold War and Washington and
London had no other way of explaining unexpected
outbreaks of nationalism, localism and the like. It
didn't take long for Moscow to realize the fragility of
the new situation in Baghdad, as the Baath Party, in
which Saddam got his start, began its long and bloody
rise to power. Russians who have followed Iraqi history
from those days to the present know that the only
certain thing about Iraqi politicians is their thirst
for blood; and the only reason for Saddam's long rule is
is that he has outdrunk all others. Such Iraqis,
Russians understand very well, are rentable, but cannot
be bought.
What quietly drives President
Vladimir Putin's strategy in Iraq is that Russia needs
stability, especially in the oil markets. The pressure
on Iraq has kept large volumes of crude oil off world
markets and allowed the Russian government to navigate
out of its debt trough on the back of high oil prices.
But an American invasion is bound to upset everything.
To be sure, in the first days of the attack, oil will
jump to US$30 or $35 a barrel. But if the Americans
establish the protectorate they say they are aiming for,
then it is near certain that the spigot on Iraqi taps is
going to open. The flood of new oil on to the market, by
which the fresh Iraqi democracy will pay for its
American tutors, will be so great, prices are likely to
collapse to between $10 and $15. The American people
will celebrate the victory all the way to their petrol
pumps. The Russian people - approaching by then a
parliamentary election, followed by a presidential poll
- won't be so cheery. They can kiss goodbye to much of
the planned investment in the Arctic, St Petersburg and
the Baltic shore, on Sakhalin and along the Pacific
coast, all of which depends on the stability of oil
prices at around $20.
Putin may be quietly
whispering Nuri Pasha's venerable advice into Bush's
ear. But he already understands that Bush, having
already gone so far, must change the Iraqi regime, if
not wage war. Putin's hope, therefore, is that Bush
won't have the nerve for risking the US occupation that
most threatens the Russian interest. The best outcome,
from Putin's point of view, would be an American attack
on Saddam himself, taking a leaf from Ronald Reagan's
script when he dispatched 120 warplanes to kill Libyan
leader Muammar Qaddafi in his tent in the middle of
Tripoli. Qaddafi's infant child was killed; Qaddafi
survived.
In a wicked world run by ill-educated
men who can't be reasoned with, the best outcome now for
Russia is for the Americans to try the biggest
assassination attempt in the history of the world - and
leave Iraqi oil in the ground, where it does the
Russians the most good, at least for a few years yet.
Even the timing of the attack ought to be clear - within
three weeks of Tuesday, November 5. That's election day
in the US.
(©2002 Asia Times Online Co Ltd. All
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