Saddammit!

Saddam Hussein never learns. Bruised, isolated, hungry, the Iraqi president personifies a perverse form of victimhood. The people are his c...

Saddam Hussein never learns. Bruised, isolated, hungry, the Iraqi president personifies a perverse form of victimhood. The people are his cannon fodder a time-tested device for every dictator, and the innocent corpses outside the bunker provide him with self-serving slogans of martyrdom. He is the hero of a permanent8217; revolution 8212; the script of which is not written by Ba8217;athism but pure tyranny in which either Arabism or love has no place 8211;pitted against Imperialist America. This is the self-portrait, copies of which are easily bought in the marketplace of third worldism. But Saddam cannot afford to wallow for ever in victimhood. He cannot let imperialism take an easy advantage. So he acted. The timing was wrong. The method was wrong. And anti-imperialism didn8217;t work. When he threatened to expel the American members of the UN Special Commission UNSCOM overseeing the destruction of Iraq8217;s ballistic, chemical and biological weapons, the perceived target was America. It was not. He was having a go at the UN. He was trying to be clever. The American response, backed by the UN, was a right rebuff to his dangerous cleverness.

Saddam could have waited, for the sake of suffering Iraqis. For, the coalition that defeated Iraq in the Gulf War was gradually coming apart. The Arabs are no longer averse to the idea of Iraq joining the mainstream. Permanent Security Council members like Russia, China and France are for easing the severe economic sanctions against Baghdad. They are keen to have lucrative oil contracts with Iraq. In fact, America was getting isolated without any nationalist8217; input from Saddam. The impatience of the dictator has totally Saddamised the situation. He thought he could exploit a UN disunited on the US policy towards Iraq. Today, fortunately, the countries which are in principle against the permanent punishment of Iraq are coming to the defence of the UN, if not the US. Rightly so, because as long as you accept the reality of the UN, you cannot allow a scenario where its writs are challenged by a rogue regime, no matter however distressed it is. It is not Saddam8217;s prerogative to choose the weapons inspectors on the basis of their nationalities. Such a precedent is the first thing other rogues are waiting for.

So Saddam is retreating without gaining anything. Nothing new, it has happened before, as in 1994 when Saddam sent troops to the border and threatened to expel American inspectors. It took a few American naval carriers and troops to make Saddam aware of his folly. Perhaps this recurring Saddamism has a purpose. It8217;s a way of coming to the centrestage: Here I am, your telegenic victim, the president of suffering, haunted by the spectre of imperialism. If the suffering Iraqis can be fed by the charred remains of the stars and stripes, it is a workable strategy. But it has been empirically proved that this strategy of anti-imperialism serves only Saddam8217;s political career. It is an irony written on the margins of global politics: America no longer topples dictatorships; America is an idea that every dictator exploits to survive. The survival of Saddam Hussein is directly proportional to the suffering of the Iraqi people.