The first thing you have to ascertain about someone whom you wish to influence, is what it is that they want. What it is that they fear. You work the situation from those two ends.
In the case of Saddam we had a project gone bad. Still it was well known that Saddam wanted better relations with the US and he was trying to do that through back channels.
So we know what Saddam wanted. We also know what he feared. He feared losing power. He feared being assassinated. Hence he had body doubles, and struck hard at anyone in defiance of him. These are attributes learned in the school of hard knocks.
I thought that Bush was doing the right thing at first. He demanded that weapons inspectors be allowed back in...and they were. Of course there were 100's of thousands of troops amassing on Iraq's borders. A good play on the part of Bush. A demand to check for weapons, backed up by the threat of force.
I had that move squarely in the win column for Bush. Instead of expanding on that tactic, Bush called for the weapons inspectors to be pulled out and staged the invasion shortly there after. Big mistake as we all know now.
A better move would have been to expand those inspections. Saddam was wanting to meet with the US. We could have capitalized on that desire. Bush failed to do that. Pretty much we could have played Saddam in the same ways that other leaders of small countries are played. You simply tell him that he can play it two ways. Our way which will be painless and profitable, or...
Now we could have done a little evolving of our policies of the past, into one that would have required Saddam to allow for democratic elections and human rights for the Iraqi people too.
Compare that to the options given to Salvador Allende in Chile. He pretty much had it explained to him, that he had two ways to do things. Nationalizing the copper mines was not taken lightly by the corporations that once controlled Chile's resources. He picked the "wrong" choice, and then of course there was a coup. And Pinochet was put in charge.
Noriega...he was given a choice too, but he went the wrong way, and look what happened to him.
With Saddam, we really didn't give him that chance to make a choice. He was only given one option...you're out buddy...and here comes the US armed forces to show you the way out. Bush and his administration had already decided what was going to happen. Saddam had no choice and no options.
I think that Saddam would have been very open to other options. He was not given any.
I don't have a very high opinion of Saddam. He was a project gone bad. But they should have given him a golden parachute and a pat on the back anyway. Then retired him and pretty much instituted "democracy" in a more organic way, from within..and not from the outside.
Orca |
