When
Saddam Hussein appeared before an Iraqi court on
Thursday, he appeared focused and very much in control
of his faculties. The censored transcript shown proved
that he was both defiant and unrepentant. How is he
perceived in Iraq, the Arab world, and the Third World
in general?
People in the world at large watched
the Iraqi dictator's appearance with acute attention. In
his last public pictures in December - in the immediate
aftermath of his capture from a hole in the ground where
he had apparently been hiding for several months - he
appeared shabby, unkempt, confused and almost deranged.
Those pictures led to speculation that he might have
been drugged by his captors, and was purposely shown in
a humiliating manner to dishearten his supporters. The
expectations on the United States side were that, by
viewing the former Iraqi ruler in an appalling and
shameful way, his supporters would even consider
abandoning their aspirations to fight against the
occupation forces. The continued violence and terrorism
since then did not fulfill those expectations. However,
it cannot be stated with any amount of certainty that
the perpetrators of violence and terrorism in Iraq were
mainly, or even substantially, the supporters of Saddam.
Now, Saddam seems to have regained his old
confidence. It is possible that in his present frame of
reference, he sees no prospects of living much longer.
After all, he should know what any Iraqi government has
to offer him. It is possible that the man who is
responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of
people is now ready to die, and wants to face death
appearing to be defiant, even audacious. That is also
the Arab way, and especially that of an Arab hero.
Saddam envisions himself no lesser than the great Muslim
warrior, Salahuddin Ayubi of Tikrit - Saddam's own
hometown - or any other great Muslim Arab hero. Thus, at
least in this appearance, he is very much speaking to
history.
Saddam's supporters in Iraq are
definitely shocked and elated. They are shocked to see
their leader in the dock - with handcuffs - as a
criminal, but they are also elated to watch his
noncompliant mannerism to the representative of the
interim Iraqi government, which, from their perspective,
is the symbol of American occupation, and is doing the
dirty work of its American "puppeteers". When Saddam
dies, they will surely remember him for his appearances
during these trials.
For the Iraqi Shi'ites and
Kurds, any amount of time spent in trying the dictator,
and allowing his defense team to pull all sorts of legal
shenanigans to postpone his much-deserved death is a
sheer waste of time. They would love to see a very short
trial, at the end of which the dictator should be
hanged. That is one reason why they cheered the decision
of the current Iraqi president, Ghazi al-Yawar, to
reinstate the death penalty in Iraq, an option that was
outlawed by the former Coalition Provisional Authority.
For the Arab world at large, Saddam has become a
symbol of defiance to the Bush administration. The Arab
masses surely haven't forgotten the fact that his regime
had the support of the US during the nine-year long
Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, when Saddam used chemical
weapons against the Iranians and the Kurds. There were
no international outcries when those tragedies happened.
The US's rationale for siding with Saddam during that
war was that he was envisaged as the lesser of two
evils, compared with the Islamic revolutionary fervor
sweeping Iran. As such, he had to prevail over Iran. In
fact, Donald Rumsfeld, then serving as special envoy of
president Ronald Reagan, met with Saddam in December
1983. The purpose of that meeting was to discuss
"regional issues of mutual interest" and the "shared
approach toward Iran and Syria".
Much of the
Arab public does not understand why the US government
subsequently made all that fuss in 2002 and 2003 over
Saddam's use of chemical weapons during the Iran-Iraq
war. A predominant Arab perspective is that the decision
was made by the administration of President George W
Bush to oust Saddam. All the "rationales" for doing so
were conjured up later on. As such, those rationales
were nothing but fleeting afterthoughts. First, it was
the alleged presence of weapons of mass destruction in
Iraq, and Saddam's purported use of those weapons
against the US or the United Kingdom. When those weapons
were not found, the very act of ousting his regime
became a noble objective for the US. Arab public opinion
continues to scoff at and ridicule all those rationales.
Thus, Saddam had an audience in the Arab world when he
stated during his hearing that his trial was a theater.
"Everyone knows," he said, "this is a theater by Bush
the criminal in an attempt to win the election."
Third World perspectives regarding Saddam are
not that much different from the ones that prevail in
the Arab world. No one admires the Iraqi dictator.
However, there is a general understanding that, at one
time, his regime fulfilled the purpose of keeping Iran
engaged in a bloody war, thereby preventing that country
from exporting its Islamic revolution into the
neighboring Gulf region. That was what the US wanted.
America's friends on the Arab side of the Gulf were
truly fearful of being thrown into the dustbin of
history a la the Shah of Iran. Washington knew that no
ruler of the Arab side of the Gulf was any less
dictatorial, corrupt or inept than the former ruler of
Iran, thus, were very much vulnerable to becoming
victims of cataclysmic change, like the Islamic
revolution of Iran in 1979. All Arab Gulf states pursued
policies that were solely aimed at prolonging their
corrupt and autocratic regimes. However, maintaining
them in power - especially at the expense of defeating
all Iranian endeavors to upset the political status quo
- was very much a part of America's vital interests.
Saddam played an important role in keeping Iran engaged,
and thereby preventing it from radically transforming
the political map of the Persian Gulf. So, in the Third
World at large, while Saddam was not considered a hero,
he certainly is not regarded as the "Hitler-like"
dictator that the Bush administration depicted him in
the days preceding the US invasion of Iraq.
There is little doubt that, as a former Middle
Eastern dictator, Saddam will die. Losers or bad guys in
that part of the world face a certain death, while bad
guys in Europe (eg Slabodan Milasovic) go through the
process of prolonged trial, at the end of which the
chances of their survival are pretty decent. However,
Saddam's life or death is no longer a relevant
phenomenon for continued political stability or the
return of civility or democracy in that country. Only
the Iraqis will play an important role in the evolution
of such a system. Right now, they are busy deciding
whether the interim government is indeed a legitimate
one. If they were to grant the extant government its
direly needed legitimacy, that would indeed be an
important step toward democratization of Iraq. In the
meantime, a fair trial for the former dictator - who was
never fair to his subjects while he was in power - will
speak volumes about what kind of Iraq will emerge in the
coming months and years.
Ehsan Ahrari,
PhD, is an Alexandria, Virginia, US-based independent
strategic analyst.
(Copyright 2004 Asia
Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com for
information on our sales and syndication policies.)
