Are we serious?

Submitted by David Wolf (United States), Jan 20, 2003 at 15:51

With all of the current momentum towards allowing Saddam to accept exile rather than utter destruction of his regime, I feel that our administration should look a bit more closely at just what a stateless Saddam at large in the middle east could mean to the US security situation.

1.) Can we really believe that Saddam will accept exile and simply vanish from world politics? He may accept it at first as a means of buying a few weeks or days in which to make his travel plans, but it is more likely that Saddam will then use the absence of a civilian populace around him to embark on some sort of suicidal end-game with any vestiges of US forces he can find. A stateless Saddam will only resort to using his considerable foreign intel apparatus to foment further conflict - which poses a much more sophisticated and difficult-to-detect threat than we see from him presently.

2.) What assurance will we have that Saddam will not, upon exile, then use his lavish personal fortune along with any financial AND military assets that he can spirit away from Iraq as he leaves to establish some kind of pan-Arab militia, or indeed a terrorist army equipped in such a way that would make Al-Qaeda look like a scout troop?

This is a serious possibility that no doubt has been considered by our strategists. My humble suggestion is that we weather the storm of international criticism that will arise, and assasinate him as he leaves Baghdad.- if necessary by destroying the plane he'll be on. Either that or insist on a military escort as part of the terms of abdication, that promptly seizes and imprisons him as he leaves the borders of Iraq.

3.) Begin a campaign of actively exposing Saddam's designs on his Arab "brothers'" territory and oil assets- exposing US intelligence if need be. By convincing his neighbors that Saddam has designs against them in the active stage of developement, and by doing so in a very public way, it will make it difficult to disagree with the facts regarding Saddam's dangerous designs. While they may still be able to begrudge us on the "arab street", they will have no choice but to agree with the necessary military actions to destroy Hussein's regime when the alternative is another Kuwait- where no arab can deny that Hussien's forces behaved in a way that displayed very little of Saddam's professed "muslim brotherhood".

When we tire of Europe's never-ending desire to distance themselves from their facist roots by trying to paint the US as aggressive and imperialistic by contrast, we may make our case more strenuously in the court of world opinion- Saddam is the new Hitler, and the mideast is positively lousy with hatred for the outside.

As the so-called Palestinians are beginning to understand, violence against the west is futile. They can either accept the existence of non-muslims on "their" part of the earth, or perish trying to dislodge them. Arab aggression against the non-arab world at large, however one attempts to rationalize it, is not a function of the struggle for justice that western intellectuals and islamist radicals attempt to depict it as. Rather, it is just the latest manifestation of the arab/muslim world's historical contempt for the outside. Poverty, disenfranchisement and death are all the fault of the outside world's hate for islam rather than the fault of the "Kleptocracies" that they accept as government. We know that the very concept of "statehood" (and thus the basis for our modern international relations) is practically poison in a region where family, clan, tribe, and religion are the only institutions that count. Modern statehood relies on a certain renunciation of the familial, tribal and religious stricture in order for there to be any measure of the other things modern societies are built on- rule of law as an example. In the mideast, the law is only as good as the authorities' immediate ability to act- invariably by force. When you have countries that are poor, and yet run by authoritarian regimes, the law doesn't stretch very far- Yemen as an example. Social progression will only begin for them when those elements of their culture, and those that perpetuate them, are finally discredited. It is as much a function of arab culture as anyting else, that war, rather than diplomacy, is necessary to vanquish them. That is an idea poisonous to the modern european intellect.

This acceptance of the futility of armed agression against the west will be the way peace is achieved. Unfortunately, the inhabitants of our allied nations are loath to accept this reality- we must forcibly disabuse the arab world of notion that they may prevail against us. That is the way they will come to accept us- we must make the price of attacking us more than even they can bear. It's the only language that is understood in the arab world, and they practice it themselves- might makes right.

Thanks again, Dr. Pipes, for not only casting light into the corners and shadows of this intercultural conflict-- indeed for even having the temerity to label it as such-- as well as for providing a forum by which the intellectually curious may find some kernel of truth in the sea of opinion-based news.

Incidentally, given the fever-pitch at which the Saudi PR machine is running, have you had occasion to listen to any of the debates involving Hussein Ibish ( to whom my very British and apolitical mother referred to as "Dr. Hussein Rubbish"!)

He is someone who is in clear need of debunking- his propensity for dualspeak and moral relativization are ponderous to the degree that he must have an awful lot of contradictory statements in his public past. He is fond of denying that there is a Palestinian terror organization, but if there were, it would not only be justifiable, but it wouldn't be any different from the Israeli "terror" apparatus (an apparent reference to the IDF). I'd love to see you fillet this big fat liar, Doctor!!!

Sincerely,

David Wolf

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