- The Observer,
- Sunday March 23 2003
The irony is that the other Arab regimes, none of them elected and all of them no less dictatorial that the Iraqi regime itself, are detested by their own people because of rampant corruption and severe brutality. They are equally detested by their American allies because they have been transformed into breeding grounds for radical terrorist organisations and thus constitute a heavy security burden.
Hence, for the first time, the Arab masses agree with their American enemies on the necessity of bringing all these regimes, and not just the Iraqi regime, to an end.
Saddam realises that this battle is his last, so he wants to drag it out as long as possible in the hope of saving himself. His strategy involves luring alliance troops into engaging his own soldiers in street to street fighting, so the allied forces lose their aerial and technological superiority.
The US Defence Department committed a grave mistake when it bought the Iraqi opposition's idea that the Iraqi regime would collapse as soon as massive troop deployments against it were completed, and that Saddam would have either to escape into exile or face a military coup d'état.
The opposition talked of the demoralised Iraqi army and the senior officers who would rebel against the regime as soon as they saw the seriousness of the deployments. No such thing has yet happened, however.
Despite yesterday's announcement of the surrender of an entire Iraqi division, the first few days of the war have actually seen the capitulation of a relatively limited number of Iraqi troops, compared with the surrender of tens of thousands of them as the ground war opened during the original Gulf conflict in February 1991.
The US has failed over the past 10 years to effect any significant intelligence penetration that might have enabled it to get to Saddam and assassinate him. A clear proof of such failure was the missile attack on positions and facilities in Baghdad last Wednesday night.
Saddam is intensely jealous of Osama bin Laden, leader of al-Qaeda, who competes with him for the hearts of the Arab and Muslim masses and in hostility toward the US. So it is likely that, like bin Laden, he will try to stay alive, even if the alliance troops enter Baghdad.
For the failure to arrest bin Laden makes victory in the war against terrorism far from certain. Similarly, any occupation of Baghdad without the arrest or death of Saddam will render the war futile for the allies.
A senior Iraqi official told me that Iraqi troops did not fight [as strongly] as expected in the first Gulf war because they did not expect the overwhelming power and size of the US war machine and the Iraqi leadership knew that losing Kuwait did not mean the end of Saddam's regime.
This time, the official said, Iraq's leaders will not be surprised by the power of the enemy forces and they know 'the war is aimed at bringing down the regime. Therefore, the real battle will be in Baghdad'.
Saddam will not use chemical and biological weapons in the early stages, even if he has them. He does not want to sacrifice the gains he made by co-operating with the United Nations [weapons] inspectors and from Security Council Resolution 1441. He would not want to lose the advantage of having split the West and embarrassed Blair, Bush and Aznar before their own peoples for hoisting the banner of war against him. Saddam will wait to see the results of the ground war and rely on street fighting.
He knows US troops have not fought successfully in the streets for more than 50 years. Their experiences in Mogadishu, Afghanistan and Beirut were not encouraging. This is why Saddam is betting his luck on the battle of Baghdad and the steadfastness of his specially trained forces.
His example will be the PLO fighters who did well against Israeli troops, who surpassed them technologically and militarily, for 87 days in Beirut in 1982. The Israelis had to accept a settlement under US patronage that allowed the Palestinian fighters to go, still armed, into exile.
The war against Saddam will not be easy or swift, as most US and British military officials expect. So long as Saddam stays alive, the resistance will continue. The Iraqi regime has ruled for 30 years with brutality and horror. Its enemies will fear rebelling lest they are severely punished. Its supporters will resist to preserve their large gains.
The regime's collapse, if and when it happens, will not be the happy ending that Blair and Bush hope for. The real war will begin after the fall of Baghdad. Iraq is extremely complex in its sectarian, racial and tribal structures. If hatred for Saddam has united most Iraqis and made them freeze their feelings toward the Americans, contrary to the position of the other Arabs, the end of Saddam will unite them once more, this time to resist the US hegemony and US agents.
Perhaps it is no exaggeration to say that bin Laden will find many supporters and potential recruits in a post-Saddam Iraq, even among Saddam's own men. The chaos and anarchy that will overwhelm Iraq will create an environment that al-Qaeda and other radical Islamic groups want.
When Saddam falls, he will not fall alone. He will pull down with him, if he can, Tony Blair, George Bush, Aznar, most of the Arab leaders and, perhaps, thousands of allied troops.
He has used chemical weapons twice, against the Kurds and Iranians, when his regime was in danger. This time, too, he will not hesitate, if he has these weapons, since his regime, and his head, are targeted.
· Abdel Bari Atwan is editor of the London-based Arab newspaper, al Quds.
