Saddam's Regime in Iraq should Be the Next Tyranny
by Stanley A. Weiss

LONDON--Albert Einstein once defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. If he were alive today he might have in mind U.S. policy toward Iraq. For more than a decade, Washington policymakers have opted to wait for the Iraqi military to overthrow Saddam Hussein, instead of providing serious support for dissidents inside and outside Iraq.

Since Sept. 11, America's attention has properly been focused on Osama bin Laden, the Qaida terror network and their Taliban protectors. U.S. and Western security demanded that bin Laden and the Taliban be the first priority in any anti-terror campaign.

With the military victory on the ground nearly secure, and bin Laden's demise sure to follow, there seems little appetite in Washington or in the capitals of Europe to go after the Iraqi dictator now.

That is a mistake. Iraq is central to the war on terrorism.

It has chemical and biological weapons and is dangerously close to having a nuclear arsenal. No one is willing to bank on Saddam's reluctance to use weapons of mass destruction or make them available to a terrorist organization. Unless the West takes him on, once and for all, George W Bush's prediction of a long war, with many more U.S. military and civilian casualties, will probably turn out to be prophetic.

Iraq was the primary focus of American foreign and military policy during the Gulf War. Since then the United States and its allies have been content to "contain" Iraq through economic sanctions and a flawed (and now failed) effort to identify and destroy Saddam's capacity to produce weapons of mass destruction.

If President Bush is serious about pursuing "nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism," then Iraq must be next on the list of captive countries to be liberated.

The Northern Alliance's march through Afghanistan demonstrates that even the most entrenched dictatorial regime will bow to a supposedly toothless insurgency when faced with massive U.S. airpower and U.S. logistical assistance on the ground. And Saddam has even less support within Iraq than the Taliban had in Afghanistan. Unlike the Taliban, who come from the majority Pashtuns, Sunni Muslims are a minority in Iraq, an artificial country with a majority of Shiites and Kurds. Unlike the Taliban, who had financial and military support from Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, the Iraqi regime is neither supported nor trusted by neighbors.

Washington seems wedded to the failed approach of relying on a military coup d'état.

A decade ago, as Iraqi forces fled toward Baghdad, the United States waited in vain for a coup while the Iraqi Kurds and Shiites it had encouraged to revolt were attacked and killed.

In 1996, the CIA, supported by Saudi Arabia, organized an officer-led coup that failed. The United States allowed what was supposed to be a safe haven for opposition forces in northern Iraq to be annihilated. Little has changed. Washington is increasing its political ties with exiled Iraqi commanders, but it continues to give the cold shoulder to the opposition Iraqi National Congress. Yet only U.S. political and military support for a popular uprising is likely to succeed anytime soon. Most Iraqis despise Saddam. Like Afghans who welcomed liberation after suffering silently under the rule of the Taliban, Iraqis would be delighted to build a post-Saddam Iraq. U.S. policymakers, under pressure from European capitals, fear that an attack on Iraq would blow apart the fragile anti-terrorism coalition. It probably would. But holding the coalition together should be a means to achieving its anti-terrorism goals, not the goal in itself.

Ending the threat of terrorism requires the West to address the political, economic and cultural issues that give rise to terrorism. That begins by getting U.S. troops out of Saudi Arabia, resolving the Israeli-Palestinian issue and encouraging more political, economic and social freedom in the Muslim world.

With Saddam gone, U.S. troops would have nothing to protect the Gulf states from. And Israel would be more likely to make the concessions necessary to achieve peace with the Palestinians. With Saddam's regime overthrown, 23 million men and women could begin to breathe again as free people. The economy would be invigorated with foreign investment in reconstruction and in the oil industry.

A popular uprising that led to a popular government could allow Iraq to take its place alongside that of its northern neighbor, Turkey, as a secular Muslim democracy. The existence of a more modern Iraq would be a model for Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria and others.

If President Bush is serious, the United States and its allies must remove Saddam Hussein.

Stanley A. Weiss is founder and chairman of Business Executives for National Security. The views he expresses are his own.