What Does It Mean?
Saddam Hussein was captured by US forces in a raid on a farm near Tikrit on Saturday night. In the eyes of the White House and the American administrator of Iraq, L. Paul Bremer III, this is a momentous event. It is predicted to shatter the morale of any Batthist resistance. That Hussein did not martyr himself and instead surrendered from his "spider hole" without a shot is good for peace. That US soldiers did not assassinate him as they have attempted in the past is good for stability. Talking about a tribunal is a step towards a legitimate dealing with the legacy of the Batthist regime. However, the fact of Saddam's capture does not mitigate the real problems plaguing the occupation authority, nor does it absolve the administration from responsibility for the deaths in this war.
We did not go to war to "get Saddam." We were told that he was an immediate nuclear and chemical threat to the west. These were and still are bold-faced lies. But will this matter? Will Saddam's bearded picture on TV screens all over America ensure a Bush victory in next year's election?
Still bearing on the future of Iraq is the simple demographic fact that a Sunni minority does not wish to be ruled by a Shiite majority friendly to neighboring Iran. Sunni Kurds have no interest in being ruled by either group. We have known these facts since long before the war. No plans were made to deal with the on-the-ground reality of Iraq before the war and no such plans are now in place. The foreign terrorists we hear so much about from the White House still represent the same threat. Their numbers are not great but they are surely not coordinated by Saddam. Just this morning there was a car bombing in Khalidiya killing at least 21 people, mostly police officers.
Continuing violence in Iraq is both a horrible and inevitable consequence of this administrations policies. The world has again come together to cheer the capture of the old Iraqi dictator. Will the White House take this opportunity to change it's contracting policies and encourage the participation of our allies and friends in Iraq's future? How will we deal with the age old problem of a divided country; are we to look to the success of Spain or to the failure of India at uniting disparate groups in a diverse nation?
As long as neo-conservative go-it-aloners dominate this administration's policy decisions there is a strong case to be made to the American people that the Bush White House has needlessly squandered the lives of American servicemen and women. It doesn't look as if Paul Wolfowitz is going away any time soon. Whomever we elect to be the Democratic nominee for President in 2004, this administration is vulnerable to legitimate criticism of it's foreign policy. The small bounce to Bush's popularity from Hussein's capture could influence the early and important primaries. Yet the general election is just shy of a year away... an eternity in politics and world affairs.
Who is this guy?
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