Abdel-Moneim Said* argues, in the second instalment of an ongoing series of articles, that Saddam Hussein's ability to stay in power for over 35 years has its foundations in a far deeper Arab malaise The "Iraqi question" goes far beyond Iraq. Indeed, it may well hold the key to the secret of the "Arab question" and the way Arabs interact with the world around them. Iraq's story is one of an ancient civilisation that reached the very pinnacle of power and sophistication, then went into centuries of decline. It is the story of a nation that attained independence, with all the promises associated with national resurgence and revival. Then came the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party. Over a period of 35 years, specifically since 17 July 1967, under the command of Ahmed Hassan Al-Bakr -- with then Vice-President Saddam Hussein by his side -- Iraq waged four full- fledged wars. The first was internal, a civil war if you will, between the central government and Kurdish forces, in their various democratic and nationalist hues. The war lasted seven years, ending in 1975 when Iraq and Iran agreed to divide control over the Shatt Al-Arab. Tehran ceased its support for the Kurds and they were subsequently granted a degree of self-rule in the north. Five years later, the Iran-Iraq war erupted, bringing with it eight years of mutual attrition. Formally, this war has still not yet ended. Many issues are still pending with respect to prisoners of war, their compensation, and opposition forces that each side harbours as a source of pressure against the other. Perhaps this explains the "neutrality" Tehran adopted in the recent war and the silence of the people of Iran, whose wave of anti-American protests ceased the moment the US launched its attack on Iraq. Perhaps it also explains why the Badr Brigades, part of the Iraqi Shi'ite opposition, refrained from fighting until it became clear who would rule Baghdad. Nevertheless, in practical terms, the Iran- Iraq war ended after Baghdad fired missiles armed with chemical warheads against Iran -- and against the Kurdish town of Halabja, to warn Kurds against cooperating with Iran in any way. Just two years on, Baghdad triggered its third war; an invasion of Kuwait on 2 August 1990. The war to liberate Kuwait that commenced seven months later ended up causing a civil war between Iraqi forces loyal to Saddam Hussein's regime and people in the north and south of the country. By the close of the war, Iraqi forces had succeeded in firmly suppressing these rebellions. However, Iraq also lost control over its territory north of the 36th parallel, and retained only partial sovereignty south of the 33rd parallel. Additionally, a significant proportion of territory in the Tigris-Euphrates valley fell under the control of UN-sponsored weapons inspectors. A dozen years later, on the dawn of 20 March 2003, Iraq entered its fourth war -- which ended a few weeks ago, having lasted less than four weeks. But, these were only the better known of Iraq's many wars; a number of lesser wars failed to catch the attention of most observers: for example, the war waged by the regime's security forces against members of the Iraqi opposition around the world. Baghdad was also waging a proxy war against its fellow Ba'athist regime in Syria. At one point Iraq supplied Russian-made Farouj missiles to Michel Aoun in Lebanon for use against Syrian forces there. There were also continuous and ongoing forays against the Kurds, as well as support for the Mujahadeen-e-khalq against Iran. Iraq even participated in the 1973 October War, contributing a squadron of aircraft to the Egyptian front and an entire division to the Syrian front, which arrived shortly before the cease-fire. Since 1973, Baghdad has been involved in all other fronts in the Arab- Israeli conflict, with the exception of the Palestinian liberation front. Although it would be difficult to assess the material and human costs of all these wars and conflicts fully, they do testify to the enormous resources available to finance them. During the Iraq-Iran war, Arab and US "soft" loans helped, but Iraq still bore the lion's share of the financial burden. Moreover, Iraq paid not only in material and human terms, but also politically, for its wars. The people of Iraq could never have sustained a virtually permanent state of war had it not been for the powerful mobilisation capacity of the Ba'ath Party's propaganda machine, or for an omnipresent security apparatus capable of keeping the population under tight control and of eliminating opponents with consummate brutality. To do him justice, Saddam Hussein did not discriminate when it came to eliminating the opposition. In fact, his fellow Ba'ath colleagues were some of his first victims. Within two weeks of the coup that brought himself and Bakr to power, he turned against the officers that helped stage the coup. Nevertheless, the nature of, and methods employed by the Iraqi Ba'ath Party are not so much our concern as the remarkable capacity of the regime to sustain itself through a series of blunders -- any one of which would have toppled the leadership in any other country. To take one example, Argentina under General Galtieri was no less a brutal dictatorship than Saddam's Iraq. Yet, when Argentina was defeated by Great Britain in the Falkland Islands War, its military regime crumbled. It collapsed, not because the war to liberate a cherished piece of Argentinean territory was unpopular -- quite the contrary -- but because it had made a strategic miscalculation and entered a war that resulted in a crushing defeat. Perhaps the Arab world is governed by different rules. For some reason many Arab leaders have survived in positions of power for decades in spite of major military defeats and horrifying political disasters. Saddam Hussein and his associates were no exception to this "Arab rule". Saddam entered his fourth major war, riding the very same forces that led him through all his previous wars. Historians will probably argue for years to come about whether Saddam could have averted his last war in light of the determination of the current US administration to oust the regime in Baghdad. Whatever their views, one thing is certain: Saddam did not learn much from his past experiences. The US is not the first country to want to get rid of Saddam. Long before it, Iran, under Ayotallah Khomeini, demanded that the Iraqi leader step down as a condition for ending the Iran-Iraq war. However, the Arabs and the US rallied to Saddam's defence, forcing Khomeini to eventually accept a cease-fire. At that time, Saddam had the perfect opportunity to capitalise on his good relations with Washington and moderate Arab governments to reconstruct Iraq and reestablish its position in the region. Instead, he forfeited this opportunity, invaded Kuwait, then passed up all opportunities to resolve the ensuing crisis peacefully. The result was a crushing defeat. In the aftermath of the Six-Day War of 1967, the Nasserist regime of Egypt readily admitted defeat, then committed itself towards overcoming the consequences of that defeat. Not so the regime in Iraq, which hailed its defeat in the second Gulf War as a victory. Instead of expressing gratitude to other Arab nations for continuing to allow Iraq within their ranks at the Arab League -- a privilege Iraq refused Egypt after having liberated its territory in the Sinai -- the Iraqi regime continued to goad its neighbours until it brought on a great deal of resentment from its sister Arab states. Rather than acknowledge that the international community had ultimately preserved its territoriality -- instead of dividing it as the allied powers had done to Germany at the end of World War II -- Iraq did everything in its power to evade UN resolutions on the elimination of its weapons of mass destruction. Following the events of 11 September 2001 -- which cast its shadow over the entire structure of international relations, US-Arab relations and US policy -- the Iraqi regime continued to plow blindly down its precipitous course of war with the US. Once again it drastically miscalculated. It bought into the claim, by many radical Arabs, that Europe had become another pole in the international order that was powerful enough to forestall war -- a claim that was eventually put paid to by the first volley of American missiles. It succumbed to the belief, also touted by radical Arabs, that the Arab "street" would rise up to defend it, when, in fact, the popular anger that was displayed did not exceed scattered protests. The Iraqi regime also set store in the global wave of anti-war demonstrations that erupted in February and lasted throughout March, oblivious to the fact that in the final analysis it is not demonstrations but governments that are the actors in international relations. Iraq has just gone down in history as the first nation to engage in war without a single ally. The US succeeded in rallying the support of 43 nations. Saddam was guilty of far greater blunders than those mentioned above, but, we must now understand that these lapses in judgement are part of a far wider Iraqi problem. And that this Iraqi problem is but part of a chronic Arab condition which is characterised by an inability to understand the power relationships that govern the world. * The writer is director of Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies.
