TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/012191/0121011.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 18.6 KB | 377 lines

                                                                                THE GULF, Page 26

Saddam's Options


They run from complete capitulation to all-out war. Which will
he choose? Who knows? He does not think like a Westerner.

By GEORGE J. CHURCH -- Reported by Scott MacLeod/Baghdad,
William Mader/London and J.F.O. McAllister/Washington


    War or peace -- the fundamental decision rests with Saddam
Hussein, as it has since the beginning of the crisis. And it
will probably be made, or at least disclosed, at the last
possible instant. Somewhere around 11:59 p.m. on Tuesday, Jan.
15, U.S. Eastern Standard Time -- one minute before what the
American State Department considers the deadline (the United
Nations has specified only the date). Or maybe on Jan. 16 or
18 or 23, or Feb. 6 or even later should President Bush take
a bit longer to gear up for war. If the Iraqi dictator tries
some final maneuver to forestall the assault, says William
Quandt, a leading American expert on the Middle East, he will
spring it "when he hears the tank motors rev up."

    Or perhaps he will do nothing at all -- just wait for war.
Or even strike first. In theory at least, Saddam's options run
from capitulation -- that is, the total and unconditional
withdrawal from Kuwait that the U.N. demands -- to deliberately
precipitating Gotterdammerung. Assessing which he is likely to
choose is a peculiarly baffling task. Constraints that would
hog-tie any democratic politician and most dictators mean
little to Saddam. His record suggests willingness to sacrifice
hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives if that would advance his
goals even a few inches.

    Those goals seem reasonably, though not altogether, clear.
Though there is some opinion that Saddam might eventually opt
for martyrdom, the consensus of American, European and Middle
East experts is that his primary goal is survival -- of himself
first and then of his power and specifically his military
machine. Second comes expansion of that power. Saddam longs to
be recognized by his fellow Arabs and ultimately the U.S.
superpower as the dominant force in the Middle East.

    Saddam has said that his ambition is to become an Arab
Bismarck. Like 19th century Germany, the Arab world shares a
common language and culture but is splintered politically.
Saddam dreams of welding it into a single, powerful unit --
with himself at the head, of course. The Iraqi leader can make
tactical retreats, but he will try to solve the Kuwait crisis
in whatever way seems to him most likely to promote those
goals, or at least deal them the smallest setback.

    The trouble is that Saddam's ideas of what would accomplish
his aims do not necessarily mesh with the West's -- or with
reality. He has a dangerous penchant for misjudging his
enemies; witness the 1980 attack on Iran that began a bloody
and futile eight-year war. Even friendly Arab diplomats find
him distressingly provincial. He has rarely been outside the
Arab world and knows as little of the West and its thought
processes as Western politicians know of his. Courses that seem
senseless or downright suicidal to analysts in Washington,
Paris or even Cairo do not necessarily look that way to the boss
of Baghdad.

    Nonetheless, it is possible to figure out what Saddam could
do. Not only is his range of options extraordinarily broad, but
few of them are mutually exclusive. He could pursue several in
combination or in sequence. In escalating order, they are:


    WITHDRAWAL

    Total, unconditional withdrawal seems the least likely
choice, but it cannot be entirely ruled out. It would keep
Saddam's army, chemical and bacteriological weapons and nuclear
potential intact; the U.S. has already promised publicly that
the anti-Saddam coalition will not attack Iraq if its troops
leave Kuwait. Bush has even hinted that Iraq could negotiate
its border disputes with Kuwait and perhaps get an
international conference on the Palestinian problem convened.
Saddam might view these as sufficient concessions to enable
him to continue posturing as the strongman of the Middle East.
On the other hand, recalls a Bush adviser, "we have said
ourselves that Saddam probably would be overthrown and
assassinated by his own people if he withdrew unconditionally
from Kuwait." Though many experts doubt that this would happen,
the dictator might have to be convinced that he runs an even
greater risk of being killed in a war that only a complete
pullout could avert.

    Partial withdrawal would be an entirely different matter.
Under the most frequently rumored scheme, Iraq would pull out
of most of Kuwait but keep the southern part of the rich
Rumaila oil field and the islands of Bubiyan and Warba, which
would allow unimpeded access to the Persian Gulf. Bush and the
U.S. allies have branded partial withdrawal unacceptable, since
it would reward Saddam for aggression. But, says Michael Dewar,
deputy director of London's International Institute for
Strategic Studies, that move "paralyzes Washington's military
option." It would be difficult if not impossible to justify a
war costing thousands of casualties for such a small sliver of
territory. Moreover, since that sliver approximates Iraq's
initial demands on Kuwait, Saddam could plausibly claim that
he had won what he really wanted. Some American and allied
officials refer to this as "the nightmare scenario" since they
think it represents Saddam's best chance of escaping punishment
and remaining a menace for the future. But Saddam might see an
even better choice.

    Phased withdrawal might offer the Iraqi dictator the
greatest chance of salvaging something from his Kuwait
adventure besides his skin. Saddam would announce that in two
weeks, 90 days or whenever, he would begin withdrawing some
troops from part of Kuwait, and maybe more later. How many
initially, how many subsequently, how fast, from how much of
Kuwait? That would all depend on what terms the allies and the
U.N. offered to have him continue the pullout.


    ANGLING FOR A DEAL

    Saddam is already dangling various ideas for a so-called
compromise before European and Arab visitors. The aim is to
divide and weaken the coalition against him. At best, in his
view, allies terrified of war would bring irresistible pressure
on Bush to delay war or, if it begins, agree to a quick
cease-fire and negotiations for a compromise settlement. In
Saddam's view, forcing or luring the U.S. into negotiating
would in itself be a victory of sorts; it would amount, he
thinks, to Washington's recognition of his paramount role in
the Middle East.

    An Arab solution is one of the leading ideas. Saddam,
probably acting through a mediator such as Jordan's King
Hussein or Algerian President Chadli Bendjedid, would say to
his fellow Arabs, in effect, "Forget the Americans; they are
interlopers here. Let's call a special meeting of the Arab
League and work out our own settlement of this unfortunate
split in the Arab world." Some possible terms: Iraqi withdrawal
from Kuwait in return for a pullout of all American and other
foreign forces from Arab countries; perhaps elections -- which
Saddam would have a good chance of rigging -- to set up a new
regime in Kuwait that would negotiate a settlement of border
and oil disputes with Iraq. Robert Keeley, director of the
Middle East Institute in Washington, warns that the U.S. might
not like such a solution but its opinion would be "irrelevant";
it could hardly wage war on Iraq without bases in Saudi Arabia
and the gulf sheikdoms. Such a settlement would leave the
Saudis, the sheikdoms, Egypt and others to face future Iraqi
aggression or bullying without U.S. protection. But they could
come under heavy pressure from their own people to go along
anyway. However, Yasser Arafat, head of the Palestine
Liberation Organization, has been proposing such a compromise
for months now without success.

    A Middle East peace conference to tackle all the problems
of the area at once is Saddam's principal lure for the
Europeans. The idea would be to exchange Iraqi withdrawal from
Kuwait for an agreement forcing Israel to give up the West Bank
and Gaza and let the Palestinians who live there form their own
state. Saddam might even propose some form of chemical and
nuclear disarmament throughout the region -- meaning Israel as
well as Iraq. Such an outcome would make Saddam a glowing hero
to the Arab masses, the first leader in 40 years to humble
Israel and accomplish something for the Palestinians. Even if
he had to surrender Kuwait, Saddam's chances of eventually
dominating the region might increase. For exactly that reason,
the U.S. opposes any direct linkage between a Middle East
conference and a settlement in Kuwait as yet another reward for
Saddam's aggression. But France and some other European allies
-- though emphatically not Britain -- would snap at the chance,
if they could talk Bush into going along. One rumor last week
was that Saddam would combine elements of several ideas,
promising through Arab intermediaries that he will agree in
principle to pull out of Kuwait -- when and how fully left vague



    PLAYING CHICKEN

    Saddam could elect to do nothing. No withdrawal, total or
partial, nor any promise of one; no further hints at a
compromise deal; nothing. He would simply dig in deeper in
Kuwait and dare Bush to put up or shut up on his threats to
expel Iraq by force. That would amount to a hair-raising game
of chicken in which Saddam would be betting that Bush would
turn away first. Possibly, or so the Iraqi dictator seems to
think, the American President will lose his nerve at the last
second. Or perhaps Congress, the U.S. public and the allies
will be so horrified by the potential casualties of a Middle
East war that they will force Bush to back down. Either way,
Saddam wins big. At a minimum, the deadline for war would be
put off for months or indefinitely while the anti-Saddam
coalition gave economic sanctions more time to work. At most,
it would be Bush rather than Saddam who proposed a compromise
in order to avoid war -- and Saddam's prestige in the Arab
world as the leader who faced down a superpower and won would
skyrocket.

    The greater possibility, of course, is that Bush is not
bluffing, and a continued game of chicken will end in a
devastating war that Saddam will lose. There is a nagging worry
in both Washington and the Middle East that Saddam's lack of
familiarity with the West is leading him into a gargantuan
misjudgment that nobody will try to correct. Saddam's advisers
during the crisis, says a friend of the dictator, "are not
sophisticated people," and in any case they "treat him like a
hero. No one dares to say, `Mr. President, we might be heading
for a disaster.' Personally, I think he is misreading Bush. He
believes Bush will not fight."

    Alternatively, though, Saddam might be, or become, convinced
that Bush will indeed fight and still do nothing to head off
a war. To Western eyes, that course might seem like suicidal
lunacy. But to Saddam it might appear to offer the final,
menacing but strangely tempting set of options.


    CHOOSING WAR

    War, says Edward Peck, a former U.S. diplomat who served in
Iraq, "is not the worst thing that Saddam Hussein can imagine."
Even if he loses? Maybe. If he has to give up most or all of
Kuwait anyway, why not fight first? His status in the Arab
world might actually rise. After all, he would be expected to
lose a fight with a superpower, but he might well gain respect
for standing up to the U.S. hard and long. In both the U.S.
State Department and the Middle East, experts note
apprehensively that Egyptian Presidents Gamal Abdel Nasser in
1956 and Anwar Sadat in 1973 suffered severe military beatings
yet gained heavily in prestige -- Nasser so much so that he
became the predominant leader of the Arab world. True, the
analogies are very far from perfect. The U.N. and U.S. in
effect reversed Nasser's 1956 defeat after a cease-fire,
bringing political pressure that forced the British, French and
Israelis who had invaded Egypt to pull out again and leave
Nasser in control of the Suez Canal. Sadat gained in stature
because he had the gumption to start a war with Israel, only
to be isolated later because he had the still greater nerve to
negotiate a peace treaty with the Israelis. Nonetheless,
opponents are afraid the lesson Saddam will draw is that in the
Arab world a leader can win by losing.

    And anyway, Saddam may believe he can in some sense win.
Given the size, technical sophistication and firepower of the
forces arrayed against him, that looks like the wildest
miscalculation of all. But the cost of proving him wrong, in
blood, economic chaos and political upheaval, could be ghastly
-- and that, in fact, may be exactly what Saddam is counting
on to make his enemies give up the fight before he suffers a
decisive defeat. Says Barry Rubin, senior fellow at the
Washington Institute for Near East Policy: "He is a great
believer that victory eventually comes to the side willing to
suffer most." During the now famous meeting with U.S.
Ambassador April Glaspie in which she signaled that the U.S.
had no interest in an Iraq-Kuwait dispute, Saddam told her that
"yours is a society which cannot accept 10,000 dead in one
battle" -- whereas Iraq had done exactly that during its war
with Iran.

    Saddam's potential victory scenario comes in two different
versions:

    Fight a defensive war. The aim would be to survive the
American aerial blitz that would open the war and then force
or lure the U.S. and its allies into a series of grinding,
fearsomely bloody frontal assaults on heavily dug-in Iraqi
positions -- a recrudescence, 75-odd years later, of World War
I-style trench warfare. That would be accompanied by some of
the biggest tank battles ever fought, which would also be
destructive and bloody. The allies might suffer huge losses so
quickly that they would speedily sue for peace or perhaps
accede to a panicky U.N. call for a cease-fire (shades of
Nasser in 1956). If not, a drawn-out war might fan the worst
American fears of "another Vietnam" and eventually build
irresistible pressure on Bush to offer some sort of compromise
settlement.

    Saddam could be very, very wrong. The aerial and naval
bombardment of the early stages could prove quickly decisive,
not only wreaking immense destruction but also breaking
Baghdad's communications with the troops in Kuwait and cutting
off those soldiers from food, water, ammunition and
reinforcements. Even in an eventual ground assault on
well-entrenched positions, the allied forces would have enormous
technical advantages: satellite intelligence pinpointing Iraqi
deployments, and devices that make visibility at night almost
as great as in the day, to name only two. Even in a drawn-out
war, the Iraqi troops -- fighting without allies, cut off from
foreign supplies by the embargo, and with their own munitions
factories under incessant aerial bombardment -- would lack
staying power; every bullet they fired would deplete a
shrinking supply. The trouble, once again, is that Saddam may
simply not see any of that. Western military men fear he has
little idea of the fury and firepower of a high-tech attack.
His mental picture of war, derived from the long struggle with
Iran, is of trenches, minefields and barbed wire foiling
human-wave assaults. Further, he might reckon that even if he
lost, he would save his skin and some part of his military
force; the anti-Saddam coalition is pledged only to push the
Iraqi forces out of Kuwait, not to drive on to Baghdad.


    Go on the offensive. If Saddam nonetheless doubted his
ability to win a purely defensive fight, he has three options
for carrying the war to the enemy:

    1) Attack Israel. Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz said last week
that Iraq "yes, absolutely, yes" would strike the Jewish state.
From a narrow military viewpoint that might seem
extraordinarily stupid. Israel's missiles and bombers could
rain far more destruction on Baghdad than Saddam's mostly
short-range and inaccurate missiles could wreak on Tel Aviv.
But Saddam's aim would be political: converting what Bush has
often called a struggle of "Iraq against the world" into a
battle pitting "the Arab nation" against Israel, the U.S. and
their stooges in Riyadh and Cairo.

    2) Attack the Saudi oil installations. Military experts
consider Saddam's missiles too inaccurate to do much damage --
if he even got them off the ground before American bombers
destroyed them. But if perchance Saddam could put a crimp in
Saudi oil production, or even cause Western traders to fear
that he might, the payoff would be immense. Panic might push
oil prices to $50, $80, even $100 a barrel. Western economies
would be rocked by uncontrollable inflation, deepening
depression, heavy unemployment; financial markets would
nosedive.

    3) Ignite terrorism on a scale never seen before. Bombings,
hijackings, kidnappings, murders would strike Americans and
citizens of other allied nations not only throughout the Middle
East but also in Europe and quite possibly in the U.S. This
strategy could backfire. Terrorist outrages often inspire fury
and a burning desire to hit back; that rage might overwhelm the
doubts of many Americans who are now dubious about, if not
outright opposed to, war. Still, terrorism is an option Saddam
could turn to, perhaps in combination with assaults on Israel
and on Saudi oil installations, to convince Americans and
other opponents that the price of defeating him is much higher
than they imagine.


    Some of Saddam's options look shrewd, some dubious, some
self-destructive. And the Iraqi dictator has not always seemed
able to distinguish which is which. Several Congressmen declare
that Tariq Aziz's stonewalling in his meeting last week with
Secretary of State James Baker, coupled with Saddam's threat
that American servicemen would "swim in their own blood" if war
came, probably swung dozens of previously doubtful votes behind
a resolution authorizing Bush to use force against Iraq, an
outcome Saddam certainly did not want. Says a White House
official charged with lobbying for that resolution: "Saddam is
really a made-to-order villain. He's playing his part better
than we could have written it."

    For the purpose of winning votes in Congress, perhaps. But
not for many others. A leader unable to understand his
adversaries, and living in a different mental world than the
one they inhabit, can be the most dangerous of all -- precisely
because his choice among available options can backfire so
bloodily.