TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/101590/1015012.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 7.6 KB | 161 lines

                                                                                THE GULF, Page 54

Saddam Hussein as the Lesser of Two Evils


Even among Arabs who condemn him, many consider the foreign
presence in the gulf a greater abomination

By LISA BEYER -- Reported by Aileen Keating/Bahrain and James
Wilde/Damascus, with other bureaus


    The old man who sat before a steaming cup at the Baghdad
Coffee House in the heart of Bahrain's Indian bazaar was of an
age where he no longer cared that government informers might
overhear him. "Listen to me," he demanded, urgently tapping a
Westerner on the knee. "Any time an independent Arab leader
looks strong," he boomed, "the West beats him down. They did
it with Nasser. They have run a vilification campaign against
Assad. And look what they did to Arafat. It dates from the
Crusades, and it will never change." The man, a retired
printer, paused. "Saddam will not win this war," he said, "but
we hope he gives the West a hard time trying."

    The Bahraini was expressing a point of view echoed elsewhere
in the Arab world. As war in the gulf looks ever more probable,
the uneasiness and frustration of ordinary citizens are
beginning to bubble over. The looming prospect of battle has
sobered some of the more exuberant supporters of Saddam
Hussein's bold defiance of the West, yet in certain quarters
-- especially in Jordan, Yemen, the Sudan and the Maghreb --
his following remains strong.

    More important, to be anti-Saddam is not to be pro-West.
Many Arabs who condemn Saddam for seizing Kuwait also consider
the foreign presence in the gulf an equal if not greater
abomination. "Even if Saddam was wrong," says a senior official
of a Tunis-based Arab organization, "we can't allow the United
States to simply come and destroy a brother Arab state."

    Such sentiments are deeply rooted in the past. Arab
humiliations at the hands of Europeans, most recently during
the colonial period, have given rise to a visceral antipathy
among many Arabs to any involvement by outsiders in their
affairs. This is aggravated by the fact that the main foreign
player in the region now is the U.S., the No. 1 supporter of
Israel. "In the minds of certain groups," acknowledges a member
of the Saudi royal family, "the U.S. is the devil incarnate."

    Washington's motives in the gulf are frequently dismissed
in the Arab world as contemptible. High-minded dissertations
by U.S. officials on the sovereignty of nations and the
sanctity of the new world order evoke smirks in the suqs of
such cities as Algiers, Tunis, Damascus and Amman. "All the
Americans want is control of the oil," says Abdul Hamid Sadiq,
a Syrian archaeologist. Principle, he adds, means nothing to
a country that "ignored the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, the
occupation of Jerusalem and the daily maiming and killing of
Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and West Bank."

    It does not help Washington's cause that Desert Shield aims
to secure and restore monarchies that many Arabs consider
anachronistic. Even in the gulf states, where the vast majority
of citizens are grateful for protection from Saddam's hordes,
there is some bitterness on this point. "What does the West
think?" asks a retired Omani municipal worker living in
Bahrain. "That we want to be servants to these corrupt ruling
families forever?"

    Washington's future designs are also suspect. Many Arabs
fear that the U.S. and other foreign powers will exploit the
Middle East's current instability to establish a new, permanent
foothold in the region. Some believe that the West actually
provoked the crisis to create this opportunity. One far-fetched
theory has it that the U.S. and perhaps other allies advised
the Emir of Kuwait to ignore Iraq's demands for economic
reparations and then gave Saddam a wink and a nod to encourage
him to overrun the country. Says a Bahraini civil servant:
"There is no doubt in any of my friends' minds that the
Americans set the gulf up."

    In Saudi Arabia, the country that appeared to be next on
Saddam's hit list, support for the alien troops is conditional.
The vast majority of Saudis are relieved that the foreigners
are protecting them from attack. But most people do not want
to have their territory used as the launch pad for an offensive
push into Kuwait or Iraq, an option that is clearly under
consideration within the Bush Administration and the Saudi
royal family.

    Naturally, Saddam is getting some of the blame for the
perilous state of affairs. The vicious plundering of Kuwait has
hardened the views of Saddam's detractors, who are many in
Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the gulf states particularly. Asks
Gehad al-Farnawany, an Egyptian housewife: "How can he claim
to be a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad and then [send his
troops] into houses to rape women?" Though Saddam's support
remains firmest among Palestinians, whose frustrated cause he
has trumpeted, some are appalled by the tales of Palestinian
guest workers who have returned home from Kuwait and Iraq. "His
men beat me, spat on me and robbed me of all my savings," says
Muhammad al-Arabi, an agricultural worker who recently left
Iraq penniless for Cairo.

    Still, the systematic destruction of Kuwait does not arouse
great outrage or sympathy among all Arabs; the poor are
particularly unmoved. The Kuwaitis, especially the ruling
royals, are regarded by many Arabs as undeservedly rich,
self-indulgent and spoiled. Nor has Saddam's seizure of foreign
hostages prompted much indignation. Saddam's sins are
constantly measured against those of the Israeli leaders, who,
Arabs point out, regularly detain Palestinians for no good
cause. So, goes the popular logic, the hostage score is a draw.

    Whatever his transgressions, many Arabs believe that at this
stage in the conflict, Saddam's belligerence is justified. "You
have to understand the Arab psychology," says Sari Nusseibeh,
a Palestinian professor of philosophy from East Jerusalem.
"What Saddam has done is wrong, but we cannot condemn Iraq for
standing up to Western military intervention." In other words,
Saddam was wrong to invade Kuwait, and the West was wrong to
get involved. But now Saddam is right in standing up to the
West's wrong.

    Such reasoning gives a glimpse into the source of Saddam's
powerful appeal among ordinary Arabs. "Saddam's support, let's
face it, is very, very large," says Ghassan Salame, professor
of Middle Eastern politics at the University of Paris. "It's
not that the man is personally charismatic. It's that he's
viewed as someone who is shaking an unacceptable status quo."
Even in Syria, whose authoritarian President Hafez Assad
despises Saddam and tolerates no dissent, the Iraqi has a
following. "Saddam is a hero in Syria because he is breaking
the head of the U.S.," says Issam al-Lahham, a rug merchant in
Damascus. "He is sticking his finger up its nose. He has made
America crazy."

    With Arab instincts already so conditioned against the West,
the outbreak of shooting could bring a cataclysmic reaction
from the Arab masses. Terrorist attacks on Western targets are
a likelihood. Internal challenges to Arab governments
supporting Desert Shield are a possibility. "A military victory
against Iraq will be difficult to handle," says Francois
Burgat, an Arabist at the Center for Economic, Legal and Social
Research Studies in Cairo. "Any regime that shares in the
defeat and humiliation of another Arab army will find itself in
a very bad situation." Even if he is trounced, Saddam Hussein
may yet shake the status quo.