Bush Gives Saddam an Incentive to Attack America
By M.P. Prabhakaran
The right to dissent is a laudable feature of democracy. It is more so in a political system like ours that discourages ideological pluralism. Our system has only two political parties that matter, the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. Both hold identical views on most everything.
The absence of ideological pluralism notwithstanding, the American political system has a reputation for being so vibrant. The main factor that accounts for that vibrancy is the fearlessness with which a few persist in exercising their right to dissent from powers that be. They have to be fearless because, on matters they dissent, they often find themselves taking unpopular political stance and pitted against a tyrannical majority. Their courage of conviction has been the envy of many, even of those who are opposed to them politically. Alas, they are fast becoming an endangered species, thanks to the relentless attack on their integrity by paleolithic conservatives and, sometimes, even by non-conservatives.
Last Refuge of a Scoundrel
If the issue relates to economy, these conservatives stifle the dissent by branding the dissenters as liberals which, unfortunately, has become a dirty word in America. If the issue involved is national security, the attackers take the low road of challenging the dissenters’ patriotism. One is reminded of what Dr. Samuel Johnson said about patriotism over two centuries ago. “Patriotism,” he said, “is the last refuge of a scoundrel.” These custodians of patriotism should realize that systematic stifling of dissent can lead to a one-party political system that will not be much different from the dictatorships that we deplore.
That brings us to the present debate on Iraq. Even President Bush stooped to the level of taking refuge in patriotism to silence his critics and turn the debate to his advantage. The Republican President accused the Democrats of not being serious about the nation’s security. That was enough to do many Democrats in. Even those who had earlier taken a bold, principled position and argued on the inadvisability of launching a preemptive strike against Iraq, which was what the President was campaigning for, started looking for excuses to rally behind him. Frank Rich of The New York Times described the somersault in their position this way: “They challenged the administration’s arrogant and factually disingenuous way of pursuing its goal, then beat a hasty retreat to sign on to whatever fig-leaf language they could get into the final resolution.” Their performance, to say the least, was pathetic.
The underlying theme of the President’s campaign that led to the passing of the resolution by Congress was that the gravest threat to the nation’s security now comes from Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Many around the world, though they detest Saddam Hussein, do not agree with the President’s contention. A lot of them even question the timing of his raising the issue. The world has been living with threats from Saddam Hussein for quite sometime, they say. If there has been any new development that makes those threats more imminent now, the President has not produced any evidence of it. In the absence of such evidence, they have every right to question his intentions in raking up the issue just a few weeks before the congressional election.
Machiavellian Tactic
They argue that if the election is fought on the real issue confronting the country today, the electorate will overwhelmingly vote against the President’s Republican Party. The real issue is the shrinking economy and the people’s lack of confidence in the economic system itself. Some of the corporate crooks responsible for bringing the economic system to this sorry pass happened to be the President's buddies. There is no hope of the present economic recession’s reversing in the near future. And the President has no effective remedial measures to offer. Hence his resort to the Machiavellian tactic of diverting people’s attention from the problems at home to the perceived threats emanating from abroad.
Americans refuse to live in fear, the President repeatedly said during his campaign for congressional authorization for the use of force against Iraq. Unfortunately, the authorization has only added to that fear. Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, they have been fearing more such attacks from the same group that was responsible for them. The group, of course, is Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda. Since the passing of the resolution by Congress on October 10, 2002, they have reason to fear attacks from one more group, Saddam Hussein and his henchmen.
All that matters to Saddam is his own survival, personal and political. He has proved to the world time and again that, when his survival is at stake, he would do just anything. The resolution that the President bulldozed through Congress has sent him a message that his survival is at stake. Even if he had no plan to attack America before, he has reason to attempt it now. The attack from him could be to preempt the preemptive strike he fears the President is contemplating against him. Or it could be to avenge the strike if America launches it first. In either case, he won’t have any qualms about using the most lethal weapon he has in his arsenal. If he knows that he is going down, he will not hesitate to take with him as many as he can.
Yes, to repeat what the President said, Americans refuse to live in fear. But that is true only in normal circumstances. Having brought them to the brink of a catastrophe, he cannot expect them to live in anything other than utter fear.
Here is something the President can do to mitigate that fear and, if lucky, avoid the catastrophe: Stop the bravado and muscle-flexing. He should know that one advantage of being a superpower is that it doesn’t have to keep rubbing in on others that it is a superpower. At the same time, it is worth bearing in mind that even a superpower is not invincible. If there is one lesson that the world learned from 9/11, it is this: it doesn’t take a superpower to humiliate a superpower. A bunch of disgruntled youths, if given the wherewithal and fired up with fanatical zeal, can do the job.
The President will be doing America and the rest of the world a big favor if he leaves the job of looking for and destroying questionable weapons in Saddam’s arsenal to the United Nations. If Saddam has weapons of mass destruction, it should be the concern of the whole world. Let the world’s representative body address that concern.
Dialogue With Saddam Can Save the Situation
There is also a need to open a dialogue with Saddam, no matter how dangerous and despicable he is. He needs to be convinced that he has only two paths before him: the path of self-destruction and the path that will save his life, along with the lives of many Iraqis and Americans. For him to take the latter path, he must allow the U.N. to implement its resolutions in respect of his country.
Saddam can be expected to agree to this dialogue if he is given a modicum of recognition that any head of state deserves and the dialogue is given the semblance of being one between two equals. We are talking here of nuancing diplomacy. Such nuancing has become necessary in the interests of peace. For that to happen, the U.S. should step aside for the time being and let the U.N. play the role it is mandated to play.
Let the U.N. be represented by no less a person than its Secretary General, Kofi Annan. I can also think of an American Saddam will grab the opportunity to have a dialogue with. His name is Jimmy Carter, the 39th U.S. President and the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize winner.
In conclusion, here is my appeal to President Bush: Please pause and think about these options before you order the first strike. It is a question of saving thousands of lives, American as well as Iraqi.
[First published on October 15, 2002]
[Readers are invited to comment. Write to letters@eastwestinquirer.com]
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Reader's Response
Saddam Has Already Attacked America
Your comments about Bush giving Saddam a chance to attack America is a crock of … Saddam has already attacked America. He did it by encouraging hatred and resentment of the West. He did it by providing money to the terrorist suicide bombers in Israel. Where did he get the money from? From the sale of oil, of course.
Saddam attacked America when he made it impossible for the United Nations-sanctioned weapons inspectors to do their work. He continues to attack America when he tries to shoot down American and British aircraft flying in the “No-Fly” zones in his country set up by the U.N. It’s too bad that you and others like you don’t get it.
If Saddam is allowed to continue with the build up of weapons of mass destruction, it will be too late to help the people of India, Pakistan, the Middle East and the Near East. It is known that he is only a few pounds of uranium away from developing weapons and that he already has tons of chemical weapons. The latter, unfortunately, were provided to him by the U.S. during his war with Iran.
If the U.S. doesn’t take a stand against Saddam, who will? Surely, not France, Germany and Russia. They all have financial ties with Iraq. Who is there bold enough to say that the emperor does not have any clothes on? As the only superpower left in the world, it is our obligation to do what is best for the rest of the world, even if the rest of the world doesn’t appreciate it.
Walter A. Robinson, Cahokia, Illinois, U.S.A.