I think that none of you really understands what happened at the end of the Gulf War. We did not remove Saddam, and furthermore we allowed the instrument of his rule, the republican guards, to escape because it served the purposes of US foreign policy to do so. Look at the entire region from the standpoint of Machiavelian real-politics.
(1) We could have destroyed the republican guards completely, within the mandate given to us, because we had them trapped in a pocket around Bassra, and we let them go (and I think Schwarzkopf was very opposed to this too.) Why? to keep Saddam in power. We never had any intention of removing him. The reason given, about instability in the region has only the smallest amount of truth to it. The only external threat was Iran, and we could have left a token force in the field to draw a line in the sand with the explicit message, you invade Iraq and we'll do the same thing to you we did to them. After our convincing display of power, that would have been more than enough. If the country disintegrated from within, so what?
(2) So why didn't we remove Saddam when we had the chance, ie how does it serve US foreign policy? Saddam is the perfect foil for the US and he doesn't even know it. As long as he sits up there threatening Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the other oil-supported sheikdoms, they need to be protected from him. And who protects them? We do. In fact, thanks to Saddam, we effectively control the supply of oil coming from the Persian Gulf. Think about it. All of those tankers going out of the gulf loaded with oil sail right by US aircraft carriers that keep make it all possible. For a lot of reasons, not the least of which is the way they now need our support and protection, there will be no further attempts to hold the West hostage over a barrel of oil. Every time Saddam rattles his sabre, it reinforces their dependance on us. And what's perfect about it, is that Saddam could not hate us more. He doesn't even realize what a perfect tool for US statecraft he is. The animosity between the US and Iraq also serves as a perfect smoke screen that obscures from the view of the rest of the world just how effective he works on our behalf. It really couldn't be more perfect.
The mistake that Clinton is making here is in attacking Saddam before he actually has any real capability to speak of. I agree with not letting him get powerful to inflict any real damage on anybody, Israel included, but as long as his capability is suspect and infant, I would let him proceed. It makes him a more credible enemy, although not to us, (God knows he never was a real threat to the US anyway) but rather to the people he really threatens, his neighbors in the Gulf. That will send them right back to us needing protection all over again.
Let me say that I have no doubt that the Saudis realize all of this, about how we're using Saddam, and resent the hell out of it, but at the same time, there's absolutely nothing they can do about it. Saddam is the bozo of the world, but what he does for US oil driven politics is nothing short of miraculous. As things now stand, we'll never get rid of Hussein.
This isn't a half baked conspiracy theory either. I think it's a pretty accurate picture of (1) what happened, and (2) the way things are.
jess. |
