Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, January 9, 1993 TAG: 9301090138
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DONALD M. ROTHBERG ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
WILL CLINTON BE TOUGHER ON SADDAM?
For two years Saddam Hussein regularly has drawn George Bush to the brink of military action and reminded the Arab world that, if nothing else, he's likely to be in power long after the American president.Soon it will be up to Bill Clinton to decide if there's a way to end this dangerous cat-and-mouse game.
In part, Saddam is following a traditional strategy for the region.
With this latest challenge of Western authority, says Hafez Malek, a professor of international relations at Villanova, Saddam "can demonstrate to his own countrymen and perhaps to other countries in the Middle East that he is not cowardly, that he is not afraid and that he can defy American power."
The timing suggests Saddam couldn't resist one more jab at Bush in an international conflict that often seems uniquely personal.
Ever since Saddam, in a gross miscalculation of U.S. resolve, sent his army pouring into Kuwait in August 1991, the conflict in the Persian Gulf has been Bush vs. Saddam, rather than the United States or United Nations vs. Iraq.
Bush scored what looked like the decisive victory when the U.S.-led coalition overwhelmed Iraqi forces in the Gulf War.
But Saddam survived, and has repeatedly challenged efforts to force compliance with U.N. directives.
Clinton supported using force to oust Iraq from Kuwait, but he also criticized Bush's policy toward Baghdad - before and after the Persian Gulf War.
"I am angered by the Bush administration's appeasement of Saddam Hussein before the war, and disappointed by its callous disregard for democratic principles after the war," candidate Clinton said a month before Election Day.
How might he change the cycle of brinkmanship that has marked U.S.-Iraq relations?
Clinton might try to diminish Saddam's authority by paying less attention to him. Under this theory, Saddam is strengthened every time he is given the opportunity to go to the brink with the West, even if he backs down at the last moment.
But in his October speech, Clinton criticized Bush for encouraging Kurds and Shiites to rebel against Saddam but then failing to support them adequately.
Might that forecast a tougher line from the Clinton administration?
Some critics of the Bush policy hope so.
Laurie Mylroie, an analyst at the Washington Institute, argues that the failure of the West to force Iraq to end its blockade of relief supplies to Kurds in the North encouraged Saddam to believe he could do what he wished in the southern no-fly zone.
"He has been getting way with one outrage after another in the North," she wrote.
Mylroie wrote that in November Iraqi agents placed bombs on a convoy when it passed through a checkpoint. Forty minutes later they exploded.
"There was no effective response to that outrage - Washington did not even condemn it verbally," she said. Not until a third bombing incident, Dec. 16, was a protest lodged with Baghdad. By then U.N. officials said they were suspending relief efforts until they could work out security arrangements with Baghdad.
Robert Lieber, professor of international relations at Georgetown University, predicted the next test would come in the north and involve a renewed attempt to crush resistance among Iraqi Kurds.
Lieber pointed out that in 1988-1989, Saddam's forces murdered 180,000 Kurds. He said that if the United States doesn't take a tough stand in southern Iraq "it may encourage him to attack the Kurds sooner rather than later."