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THE ROVING EYE
Saddam's sleepless
nights
By Pepe
Escobar
BRUSSELS - Saddam Hussein is afraid.
Saddam Hussein is very afraid. Or is he?
The
Iraqi state press is not exactly impressed with the
emergence of a detailed concept for a military attack on
Iraq, which an anonymous source leaked to the New York
Times last week. Asia Times Online had detailed some of
the contents of the rough draft way back in March
(Bush vs Saddam: The empire strikes
back).
The document has
not been presented either to US Chief of Central
Command, General Tommy Franks, or to Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld. According to the source, the leak was
inevitable because the document was mediocre. This may
certainly be the case - but alternatively the document
performs a role the Pentagon is not exactly unhappy
with: it is a perfect excuse for the Iraqis not to
cooperate with the return of UN weapons inspectors.
From an Iraqi point of view, now there's
absolutely no reason for any kind of cooperation. Iraq
is the leading member of Bush's "axis of evil". The US
president has stated that he wants a "change of regime"
in Iraq. Three weeks ago, the CIA got a blank check to
try do dislodge Saddam by all means necessary. The
original deadline - an attack next fall - was just
postponed to the beginning of 2003.
Last Friday
in Vienna, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan left the
third round of discussions with Iraq on the return of UN
weapons inspectors empty-handed. He said the UN would
"remain in touch" with Iraq - but Annan himself will no
longer be directly involved while the Iraqis don't move
on the crucial question of the return of the inspectors,
who left the country in December 1998. The official
Iraqi position remains the same, as articulated by
Foreign Minister Naji Sabri. Iraq wants "a comprehensive
solution, mostly including the end of the sanctions and
the respect of our independence".
As Asia Times
Online certified last April inside Iraq (Iraq Diary), the
totalitarian character of the UN sanctions is imposed on
the Iraqi population as much as the totalitarian
trappings of Saddam's regime. But Sabri is not off the
mark altogether when he accuses the US of forcing the
return of the inspectors "to refresh the information
they provide to American and British planes so they can
strike the Iraqi people. These are the colonialist
dreams of evil leaders in Washington".
Arab
public opinion does not like what they hear from
Washington. For most of the press in the Gulf States,
the UN Security Council is just following US orders,
"trying to find weapons of mass destruction in Saddam's
bedroom", or trying to "find an excuse to attack Iraq".
Whatever his plans for Iraq, Bush will need
support from Congress. In 1991, for Desert Storm, George
Bush senior got his approval from the Senate with a
narrow margin of 52 against 47. Nowadays, Democrats -
the Senate majority - and even a few Republicans are not
exactly keen on a replay.
The consensus in
Europe is that an American invasion might be a good
thing for Israel, but it may be absolute hell for
American influence. Israel's motivation is to destroy
the Iraqi economy for many generations. The Iraqi
opposition's motivation is to grab raw power. The
backlash for the US would be long-term hatred by all the
Arab peoples. European diplomats comment that the only
viable solution is "an annulment of the UN sanctions
that would permit the development of a civil society in
Iraq". And in the short term, "the implementation of the
[Saudi Crown Prince] Abdullah plan in Palestine".
Arab countries approved the Saudi plan - Israel
back to its pre-1967 borders in exchange for recognition
by the Arab world - at the Arab League summit in Beirut
last March. This was a big victory for Saddam Hussein.
Sources confirm Abdullah had been trying for a long time
to lift the sanctions and reach a modus vivendi with
Baghdad. But for him there was always a condition:
Shi'ites - 60 percent of the population - should have
better representation in the Iraqi government.
In Iraq, Asia Times Online learned that Saddam
was extremely suspicious of Abdullah - whom he
considered a Sunni enemy. But the ever reasonable Deputy
Prime Minister Minister Tariq Aziz had a margin of
action to decide otherwise, so he started working with a
group of Abdullah's emissaries for a quick reinstatement
of Iraq in the Arab family. It was Tariq Aziz himself
who negoatiated as far back as the beginning of 2001 the
definitive Iraqi acknowledgment of Kuwait's
independence. But at the time Saddam still regarded
Kuwait as Iraq's 19th province.
Even through the
veil of secrecy that surrounds everything concerning the
Iraqi regime, it was possible to learn in Iraq that
around September 11, Iraq and Syria were trying to get
closer, because both were very disturbed by the
increasingly cosy relations between Iran and Saudi
Arabia. That's the reason why Saddam started to pay
attention to a certain Osama bin Laden. Osama is a
mortal enemy of Prince Abdullah.
Some
connections can be drawn. Iraq's ambassador in Turkey
received some al-Qaeda emissaries in Ankara. A few
Iraqis started mingling with Pakistani Inter-Services
Intelligence( ISI) operatives helping the Taliban in
Afghanistan: Asia Times Online met one of these in a
Panjshir valley prison in August 2001. He had been
captured by Northern Alliance forces, and he described
himself as "opposed to Saddam Hussein".
Kusai -
the most intractable of Saddam's sons - also started
paying attention to al-Qaeda. Saddam signed a few
decrees forbidding women to work in selected fields.
Extremely conservative Sunni brotherhoods started
springing up everywhere in the Iraqi countryside. It's
no wonder that the secular Iraq of the 70s has
disappeared: Sunni mosques are being built everywhere.
But there is absolutely no evidence that
al-Qaeda was or may be directly involved in Iraq. The
only concret link is the fact that Muhamad Atta - the
chief pilot on September 11 - twice went on a return
ticket to Prague from New York to meet the local chief
of Iraqi intelligence. And as far as Saddam Hussein's
stock of weapons of mass destruction is concerned, it is
primitive, and merely defensive. The excuses for an
American attack are flimsy at best.
Asia Times
Online also ascertained - through a member of the
Republican Guard who agreed to talk in absolute secrecy
- that Saddam now lives in constant double-edged fear:
fear of the inevitable American attack, and fear of the
plots to kill him, concocted either by disgruntled
generals or by key former figures like his half-brother
Bassam, former ambassador in Geneva, or the former chief
of military intelligence who now lives and plots in
Damascus.
But Saddam's biggest fear remains Iran
- and the Shi'ite majority in Iraq who would expect help
from Tehran in case the regime starts imploding. As
Saddam was propping up Syria's regime, he still refused
to renounce Kuwait. But in the end Tariq Aziz's strategy
was successful: Iraq finally recognized Kuwait at the
Beirut summit - but in exchange for total solidarity of
the Arab states in case of American attack. It's open to
scrutiny how this solidarity would resist extreme
American economic and military pressure.
One of
the strategies Saddam could use to protect his assets
from American strikes is to roll his tanks into Syria
with the benediction of Bashar Assad, and proclaim that
he is ready to liberate Palestine: anyway, this is what
an artillery of videos on Iraqi state TV rhetorically
proclaim non-stop. The Iraqi move would certainly force
Israel to wage war against Syria - but ultimately
nothing would prevent the Israelis, and the Americans,
to go from smashing Damascus to smashing Baghdad.
It's no secret among European diplomatic circles
that what the US really wants is to install a vassal
regime in a crucial oil producing country like Iraq. The
US wants a thug - a new Mubarak - but "our thug". The
new thug would be a vital cog in a grand geostrategic
oil design. As the US is already on the ground in
Central Asia and slowly encircles Russia and China,
nothing would be sweeter than a Middle East linked to
Central Asia as an American-influenced geostrategic
area.
Arguably none of Washington's hawks has a
clue on what to do with Iraq after Saddam. It's
absolutely unlikely that a liberal regime would spring
up in Baghdad. Echoes from the Kurdish diaspora in
London and Paris reveal that the Kurds are deeply
divided over their future. Those who live in the
autonomous area in the north are not willing to abandon
their comfortable semi-independent status. And the Iraqi
opposition in exile is little more than a bunch of
thugs.
It's very important to point out that
since the "Mother of All Battles" - as the Gulf War is
known in Iraq - Saddam was absolutely incapable of
containing the Kurd secession in the north. These Kurds
speak an Iranian language, they were part of the Ottoman
Empire until 1918, and since then have no particular
reason to feel they belong to Iraq. They were glued to
Iraq by the British - for strictly oil-related reasons.
They are very close to their blood brothers in Turkey
and also in Iran.
Saddam did his homework. He
was interested only in the oil-rich part of Kurdistan,
prone to a process of "Arabization". The rest of the
province was tribal territory - and off limits to Iraq's
army. Since 1991 an autonomous Kurdistan is under a
shadow American protection: its leader, Masoud Barzani,
is under de facto Turkish protection.
The CIA
may not know that some of the key Iraqi ayatollahs are
in favor of democracy in Iraq, and many are admittedly
nostalgic for King Faisal and the Hashemite dynasty.
Saddam himself has been courting the ayatollahs for
years. Most of all, the ayatollahs really fear Saddam's
sons, the ruthless Udai and the extremely cruel Kusai.
Whatever the outcome of the Empire striking
back, European diplomats agree that "the integrity of
Iraq is the most important consideration of all. It's
vital for Turkey, Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia, all the
important regional players", as a Danish diplomat
(Denmark currently holds the EU presidency) put it. The
common nightmare is a post-Saddam Hussein fragmentation.
Everybody in Europe and the Arab world fears that if
Israel finally decides to go back to its pre-1967
borders, the US will eventually get a free hand from all
those "solid" Arab leaders in Beirut to do whatever they
want with Iraq. No wonder the anonymous Republican
Guardsman in Baghdad revealed that Saddam is suffering
one long, endless, sleepless night.
(©2002 Asia
Times Online Co, Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
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