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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (36963)	8/11/2002 2:49:17 PM
From: jcky	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

<< I do call it unprovoked to attack a third party and drag them into the war. >> Do you mean like how the Israelis have a history of dragging Americans into the Mideast conflicts whether it is a campaign of massive airlifts in the Yom Kippur War (with the subsequent oil embargo imposed upon us by the Arabs) or dead marines in Beirut for peace keeping efforts as a direct consequence of the Israelis' misguided policy of a Lebanon invasion to this current potential fiasco with Iraq? << Yes, it is dangerous to gun for Saddam, no doubt about it. Though as we clearly don't feel the same way about his generals, maybe some of them won't feel like dying or committing war crimes for an about to be toast supreme leader. >> The notion that the Republican Guards or units of the Special Republican Guards are going to just lay down their arms when the Americans come strolling into Baghdad is unrealistic. Now, you may make a case for the regular army corps, but it will most certainly not be true for the Republican Guards. Here are the sobering facts. Iraq still has a deployable force of roughly 375,000 men organized into seven corps: two Republican Guards corps and five regular army corps. The Republican Guards are further sub-divided into six Republican Guard divisions and four Special Republican Guard brigades. Each division is composed of approximately 10,000 men and each brigade is about 2,500 men. The Special Republican Guards number roughly 12,000-15,000 but can be mobilized into 20,000-25,000. They are stationed in central Baghdad and in the Republican Palace to protect the regime. Both the Republican Guards and the Special Republican Guards are trained in urban warfare, security operations, and conventional tactics. Let's look at the structure of command for Saddam's Republican Guards and you will understand why defection is highly unlikely with this core group. We all know that Saddam maintains his regime through terror and coercion. But these elements alone will not always guarantee success for a dictator. So what is unique about Saddam? It is his ability to assign key structures of command and power to members of his immediate family and individuals who are loyal to his clan. And loyalty to his clan is pretty much a bond tied into blood. << 1. rational >> Nadine, I don't know why the hawks keep bringing up the point of whether Saddam is rational. It's almost as if repetition, alone, is enough to make a case against him when Saddam's previous exploits can be easily explained by a rational model. The very fact that Sharon has issued a warning to Saddam not to attack Israel should the US invade Iraq is enough evidence alone. There's isn't much point in threatening an irrational mind, is there? And you certainly don't find any credible experts asserting Saddam is irrational, do you? Pollack believes Saddam is a victim of his character pathology, not his irrationality. The more significant question is whether Saddam is deterrable. And this is a topic of debate without any clear answers. The hard-liners have articulated a position with many good points, but the critics have responded with some good counterpoints too. << 2. unwilling to tolerate risk beyond a certain level >> Saddam never did employ his WMDs against American troops or Israel during the Gulf War. There are two very compelling reasons for doing so. The first reason lies in the devastating counter-strike from either the US or Israel in the form of either nuclear weapons or overwhelming military force which would guarantee the destruction of his regime. His unwillingness to tolerate such risks, beyond a certain level (i.e. he is deterrable), was one of the reasons why Saddam did not employ WMDs in the Gulf War. The second reason rests in the logistical reality that Iraqi soldiers were poorly equipped for combat if Saddam should elect to use his biologic or chemical weapons in Desert Storm. In theory, there may have been more dead Iraqis than Americans from the callous use of such weaponry. This is evidence suggestive of Saddam's rational behavior. Why would a madman care? << 3. believe in the threats >> You don't honestly believe if Saddam didn't believe there were a credible threat of an imminent invasion from the US that he would be playing the diplomatic victim right now? Or that he would be offering, albeit a cat and mouse game, hints for the renewed return of WMDs inspectors to Iraq? It is the very veil of a credible threat to his existence which has brought Saddam back into diplomatic negotiations. << 4. alive and around, not dead and succeeded by a psycopath like his son Uday >> I thought the hawks were intent on removing Saddam? So what if he's not alive and around. That is the stated goal of the Bush Administration: regime change. This argument also cuts both ways. So if there's no guarantee that a psychopath like Uday will not succeed Saddam, what guarantee is there that a forced democracy in a post-Saddam will work either. And this is especially true given the dismal performance of the Bush Administration in the nation-building effort of Afghanistan post-Taliban. Uday will never succeed Saddam. There was an assassination attempt on his life which failed and left him crippled. In the Arab world, a physical appearance of weakness is not tolerated. What everyone has also failed to address, except briefly by tek, are the far reaching implications of Bush's cowboy diplomacy. The US has never employed a policy of pre-emptive war upon a nation which has never directly attacked us. Would this lower the threshold for aggressive confrontation by sub-superpower nations which are constantly picking a bone with each other (Pakistan and India, Israel and the entire Mideast, almost all of Africa, etc.)? And what does this imply about the credibility of America, a nation built on the rule of law, and the expectations we should police the world in an equitable manner?