Time - Man of the Year/Time_Man_of_the_Year_Compact_Publishing_3YX-Disc-1_Compact_Publishing_1993.iso/moy/092892/0928unk.001

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                                                                                AMERICA ABROAD, Page 49

Iraq: It Could Be Even Worse


By Strobe Talbott


    The United Nations is about to supervise the destruction
of Iraq's stockpile of nerve gas at an incinerator only 60
miles from Baghdad. It is a symbolic moment: Saddam Hussein may
still be President of the Republic of Iraq, but like his arsenal
of dangerous toys, his claim to being the absolute ruler of a
sovereign country is going up in smoke.

    The international community has put Saddam under a form of
house arrest. His air force cannot fly to the south; his army
cannot march in the north; he dares not venture for too long
into the sunlight for fear of encountering a smart bomb or a
dumb bullet with his name on it. Led by the U.S., the U.N. is
using sanctions, inspections and the threat of military
retribution to whittle down the scope of his authority to his
palace and his bunker. The hope in Washington is that sooner or
later, someone in Saddam's inner circle, or more likely a junta
of someones, will tire of working for an impotent pariah; one
fine morning Saddam will be gone, at least from office and
better yet from this world.

    The trouble with this strategy is that it may succeed. If
the American dream of Saddam's removal comes true, the result
could be a whole new humanitarian and political nightmare.

    The danger is clearest in northern Iraq. The population
there is made up mostly of Kurds, members of a non-Arab minority
that the Iraqis have persecuted for decades. During the Gulf
War, the Kurds eagerly responded to George Bush's call for a
popular uprising. They saw a chance to break free of Baghdad
once and for all.

    But that was emphatically not what Bush had in mind. He
has identified "instability" as the greatest threat to world
peace in the post-cold war era. He sees the global contagion of
secessionism as profoundly destabilizing. In three cases that
came to a head last year -- Iraq, Yugoslavia and the Soviet
Union -- Bush instinctively sided with the central governments,
no matter how unpopular and repressive, against separatists.

    The Kurdish question is particularly tricky. In addition
to the nearly 5 million Kurds in Iraq, there are 12 million to
15 million in Turkey. A close American ally, Turkey is one of
the few secular democracies in the Islamic world, making it an
important positive influence in the Middle East as well as in
Central and Southwest Asia. The mere prospect of independence
for the Iraqi Kurds would inspire their Turkish brethren to step
up the guerrilla war they have been waging against Ankara since
the early 1980s.

    That is largely why Bush let Saddam's army suppress the
Iraqi Kurds and drive them into the mountains along the Turkish
and Iranian borders, where many starved or froze to death. It
was only because the Western media publicized those horrors
that the Administration belatedly came to the Kurds' rescue.
Along with other members of the anti-Saddam coalition, the U.S.
has established an umbrella of armed force to safeguard the
Iraqi Kurds above the 36th parallel. The area is now a de facto
Kurdish state. It has an army and a democratically elected
parliament, and it is developing its own laws and taxes. Out of
deference to Washington and Ankara, Kurdistan still flies the
Iraqi flag, but no officials from Baghdad are allowed in.

    Ironically, the Kurds have one reason to pray for Saddam's
survival as fervently as Bush prays for his demise. If Saddam
falls, he will probably do so at the hands of his generals. By
and large, they are no better than he is. Yet if they topple
him, they will ask for the restoration of Iraq's sovereignty
and territorial integrity. They will also insist on every
dictatorship's favorite principle of international law:
noninterference in internal affairs. That would mean a license
to send Baghdad's bombers and troops north to crush the Kurds.

    At recent meetings in the White House and State
Department, several officials have argued, as one put it, "We
may get another tyrant, only our ability to contain him will be
more limited simply because he's not Saddam." Despite that
concern, the Administration has decided to keep the focus on
getting rid of Saddam; better not to discourage any possible
plotters by imposing in advance conditions aimed at protecting
the rights of minorities. The most U.S. officials are authorized
to say in public is that it would be nice if a future Iraqi
government were "willing to live in peace with its neighbors and
its own people." That is supposed to be a "signal" to Saddam's
successors to tread gently north of the 36th parallel.

    But there is no place for subtlety, politesse and
diplomatic code words in dealing with thugs such as those who
are likely to replace Saddam. As in its vendettas against
Castro, Gaddafi and Noriega, the U.S. has once again
overpersonalized the problem in Iraq and oversimplified the
solution. The issue is not just a dreadful man but a dreadful
system.

    In keeping the squeeze on Iraq, the U.S. should stop
playing coy with potential coup leaders. It should say
explicitly that sanctions and no-fly rules will stay in force
until the powers that be in Baghdad, whoever they are, behave
in a civilized fashion toward their subjects. Otherwise Saddam
could end up having his revenge from beyond the grave on Kurds
and coalition alike.