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Iraqi gambit worries
UN
By Alexander Casella
NEW
YORK - Senior United Nations officials in New York have
confirmed that Saddam Hussein has instructed all the
levels of his administration and armed forces to fully
comply with all requests from the UN arms inspectors and
to refrain from any attempts at withholding information.
That this instruction has filtered down to even
the lowest levels of the Iraqi system is perceived as a
deliberate policy by Saddam seeking to ensure that no
pretext be given by Iraq to President George W Bush to
launch a military operation.
The feeling in New
York is that the ball is now fully in Saddam's court.
"If Saddam plays the game," commented a UN official, "he
will put Washington in the difficult position of not
having a credible pretext to intervene and exercise its
military option."
While UN officials feel that
it is not beyond US policy to create a pretext for
intervention in Iraq, their main concern is that such a
pretext will be provided by Saddam himself, not as a
well thought out decision but either as a miscalculation
or as the result of an unauthorized gesture of
harassment of the UN arms inspectors resulting from a
local initiative.
Thus what observers foresee,
over the coming weeks and months, is a cat and mouse
game between Washington trying to overthrow Saddam, and
the latter trying to ensure his survival.
Within
such a scenario, weapons of mass destruction are no
longer, at least for Saddam, the issue. Indeed, to
politically survive he does not need them; they are,
after all, of very limited, if any, possible use in any
internal confrontation. Thus, if Saddam does not fall in
the trap of obstructing the UN arms inspection program
and actually manages to deliver all his alleged weapons
of mass destruction, it will ultimately be back to
square one for Washington.
Granted, this an
option that has not been discounted in Washington, where
a number of scenarios are constantly being redrawn. The
fact that they all provide, in one way or another, for
the fall of Saddam and a "regime change" are another
cause of concern to UN officials.
The consensus
at the UN is that in over 20 years of absolute power,
Saddam has completely dismantled the Ba'ath Party and
replaced it with a personalized power structure based on
an interlocking system of family, clan and tribal
loyalties. By systematically obliterating any potential
opposition and relying on tribal networks of allegiance,
Saddam has made "regime change" impossible by the simple
fact that an administrative alternative to his rule does
not exist.
Granted, this is not a unique case.
After World War ll, Japan was rebuilt by the same
indigenous internal administrative service that had
prevailed during the war. Likewise, except for token war
crimes tribunals, the post-war West German economic
miracle was operated by former Nazis. In both these
cases, however, while the local internal administrative
structure was left practically intact, an outside power,
namely the US, exercised political and military
oversight.
In the case of Iraq, none of the
opposition groups have the capability of operating or
using the administrative networks created by Saddam or
of setting up another of their own. Thus the post-Saddam
era has only two scenarios: either the elevation to
power of another Saddam who could command the loyalty of
the present establishment, or the elevation of an
American protectorate.
Such a protectorate would
unavoidably entail the massive input of aid from
non-governmental organizations, from the international
community (in the form of the UN), and from non-UN
organizations. It is a scenario that many in New York,
who try to cling to at least the appearance of some UN
independence from the US, view with dread.
But
at this stage, it is a scenario that it may not be
possible for the world to avoid.
(©2002 Asia
Times Online Co, Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
contact content@atimes.com
for information on our sales and syndication
policies.)
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On
Iraq, Asia waits, watches and wonders (Nov 13,
'02)
At
the UN, a bullet in the material breach (Nov 8, '02)
How
to beat Iraq without a fight (Oct 31,
'02)
The
case against preemption (Oct 9, '02)
The
emperor within the empire (Oct 8, '02)
Iraq:
Use of force is unavoidable (Oct 5, '02)
Like
lambs to the slaughter of Iraq (Oct 3, '02)
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