Count Saddam Down, But Not Out

by Franz Schurmann

Until March 20, 2003, the one man who did govern Iraq solidly for 35 years through a combination of ruthlessness and pragmatic deal making was Saddam Hussein. The man who looked at his dead friend in the Al-Kindi hospital may have wondered whether only Saddam was able to rule such a hodge-podge country even as he snuffed out many thousands of Iraqi lives in the name of national unity. Though he was a despotic strongman, the Arabic phrase aqada as-safqa, "strike a deal," epitomizes his rule.

Saddam's ruthlessness was well known. He killed his own sons-in-law who had defected to Jordan after he enticed them back with promises of a pardon. When his own sons and grandson were killed by the Americans, his reaction was, "I wish I had 100 sons to fight the Americans."

But a streak of pragmatism has always saved Saddam. He was afraid of being captured many times in the past. During the Iran-Iraq War (1980-88) he was worried that Washington might cut off aid to Iraq and deliver him to his archenemy, the Ayatollah Khomeini. But Washington saved him. During the 1991 Gulf War, President George H. Bush saved him once again by not allowing the troops to march to Baghdad.

Is it possible that the powers that be in Washington -- the White House, the Pentagon and the State Department -- all along have known that Saddam Hussein was the only Iraqi leader who was able to hold the oil-rich country together? George H. Bush appears to have accepted that position, but George W. Bush disagreed on March 20 this year, when he gave the order to invade Iraq.

But according to the Arab press, even the Bush administration might have made a deal that allowed Baghdad to fall with little Iraqi resistance. Arab press reported that a top Ba'ath leader, Izzat Ibrahim Ad-Douri, whose daughter was married to one of Saddam's sons, might be groomed to succeed Saddam. Though Ad-Douri is No. 5 on the Pentagon's most wanted list of top Ba'ath leaders, he was in the good graces of Washington's trusted ally, Saudi Prince Abdullah, and is widely believed to be living in the oil city of Mosul.

But this time the safqa didn't work. And that was because Iran got angry about it after Bush excluded them from their fellow Arab Shiites, who comprise 83 percent of Arabs in modern Iraq. Soon after the U.S. administration started jettisoning the Ba'ath power structure and accommodating the Shi'ites, the attacks on the Americans intensified, coming mostly in the Sunni-dominated regions of Iraq.

Saddam's capture provides Bush with a grand opportunity to re-establish Iraqi unity by bringing Shi'ites and Sunnis effectively together. Saddam may have been captured in a hole in the ground, but from his 35 years in power he knows the political situation in Iraq better than any of the 23 million Iraqis. If the Americans are to establish order in Iraq, they need that knowledge.

The huge public-relations victory of Saddam Hussein's capture can resonate beyond Iraq. During his presidency, Richard Nixon and his advisers devised a "two pillar" policy for the oil-rich Gulf region, one pillar being Sunni-dominated Saudi Arabia and the other Shi'ite Iran. These two pillars would represent America's interests in the region. It worked until 1978, when Iranian revolutionaries deposed the Shah of Iran. A year later, radical Muslims stormed the grand mosque in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, the holiest of all Muslim sites.

Saudi Arabia and Iran might be now more amenable to exerting what pressure they have on Iraq's Sunnis and Shi'ites respectively. And, given that the election year 2004 is only weeks away, Bush can finally implement an "exit strategy" that will bring home most American soldiers from Iraq and give him a second presidential term.