Couldn't be worse? Iraq after saddam

National Interest, The, Winter, 2001 by Ofra Bengio

In either of these cases, or most scenarios in between them, several features of a post-Saddam Iraq are clear. First, the army will dominate Iraqi national politics, whether it safeguards the regime from its foes, itself initiates a coup against it, or controls the country by default in the aftermath of an upheaval. Second, the Ba'ath Party may well survive, and no political opposition at home or abroad will be able to match it for a long while. But third, the total stagnation of Iraqi politics, which has characterized the long years of Ba'athi rule, will most likely come to an end. The end of stagnation, however, could as easily lead to chronic and severe instability as to a benign opening up of Iraq's political and economic systems. Fourth, if either 'Udayy or Qusayy prevails after Saddam, the key personality of the regime will be essentially as ruthless and authoritarian as Saddam is today. Particularly since Saddam himself is now deeply engaged in preparing the country for post-Saddam Iraq, the chances a re very likely that, even after his departure, we will see "business as usual" in Baghdad.

Therefore, anyone who imagines that, left to its own devices, post-Saddam Iraq will become a democracy, or cease to seek weapons of mass destruction, or have qualitatively different relations with its neighbors, or be led by someone significantly less brutal than Saddam himself, has a difficult argument to make. There is simply no evidence for such a view.

This leaves us with no other conclusion than this: If the danger that Ba'athi Iraq poses to its own people, the Middle East and the United States is to end, that end will have to be prompted by forces external to Iraq. This does not mean that the United States and its allies will need to directly conquer, occupy and detoxify Iraq's political culture, for such an intrusive and protracted project may be too dangerous, unworkable or both. But it does mean that the United States must design a plan to influence and to work with the Iraqi army's leadership cadres in order to prevent either of Saddam's sons from continuing his life's work. Such a plan may need to include the use of force in support of lesser evils in a post-Saddam succession struggle. It may have been comforting in past years for some to have thought that such plans, and the risks they entail, would not be necessary. After September 11, however, the civilized world can no longer afford the illusion that the Iraq problem will simply take care of itse lf.

Ofra Bengio is a senior research fellow at the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies at Tel-Aviv University, and author of Saddam's Word: Political Discourse in Iraq (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998).

(1.) The latest victim was Saddam's cousin, 'Ala' 'Abd al-Qadir Sulayman, who sought asylum in Jordan but was refused and had to return to Baghdad. He had been working in Iraqi Intelligence since 1990.

(2.) All sources for this essay are available from the editors upon request.