Saddam's Restoration to Power

[dreissig]

It won't be over until the Americans capture Saddam. Otherwise he'll just come back to power and proclaim a great victory.

The fact that Saddam hasn't been captured yet suggests he still has a lot of control. Although strictly speaking he's not in exile, he awaits his opportunity to return to power. Like Ayatollah Khomeini in Paris, Saddam's "virtual" exile ennobles him in the eyes of his people.

If America disengages now, we'd cut our overall losses. Wolfowitz has probably dropped the demand that Saddam be captured alive. No more nice guy, says Wolfie. The son of a bitch tried to kill me.

[acmavm]

1. Yeah, that's right. The opposition to the American occupiers is all

because they're waiting to put Saddam back in power. Not because we are bombed the shit of of their country, took it over, let rioters and looters rum amuk all over the place (thank God we had the good sense to guard the Oil Ministry offices), won't give them any say in the development of any type of new government, and are going to hold a fire sale of all their assets. NOOOO, that'n couln't be it. It's because they all want Saddam back in power.

I doubt the guy has any control at all. He couldn't save his sons from a certain death. He's not a popular man in the eyes of the Iraqi on the street, or the Shi'ites. And I hardly doubt that he's being "ennobled" in the eyes of the people.

And as for Wolfie, it's always been personal. Read the neocon agenda. And if the guy is stupid enough to go over there and parade around, well then. When are people going to wise up and quit thinking about Iraqis as being backward and stupid. They have a civilization a lot older than ours, they know what these people are up to. And just because they don't feel like letting them roll in and sell off the country to Halliburton, Bectel, and KBR, doesn't mean that they are looking forward to the day when Saddam is back in power.

[dreissig]

2. You Missed the Point

The fact that America exploded a lot of bombs and killed a lot of people has not translated into a fundamental political change such that America can hand off to our surrogates. America can keep Saddam from exercising formal power but doing so creates an unnatural vacuum. This "governing council" is a farce. The real power in Iraq is still Saddam. All that America has done is keep him from exercising it.

How long can it continue - 5 years? 10 years? Saddam can wait. Nobody really knows who's loyal and who's not. The fact that the Iraqi resistance got close to killing Wolfowitz suggests that Americans can't trust any Iraqis, even the ones they thought they knew.

Here's a prediction: Americans will not slog through a dishonest war. We'll get out.

[acmavm]

3. No, you missed my point. Saddam is not the issue here. The issue is

that while we call ourselves liberators, all we have done is go into Iraq and tear up the place. In the name of liberation we have given them a puppet government beholden to no one but the Bush Administration, refused to allow them any say in determining their future, and we did it all without any justification whatsoever. The excuse for so much death and destruction was based on lies by an administration that is run by people that planned this horrible invasion years ago.

The fact that Saddam is in hiding like bin Ladin and is evading capture means that he may have some allies willing to hide him out until we leave, but the obstacles that he would have to face to regain power are just insurmountable. Saddam is now a moot point. Add to the the fact that we have done enough on our own to turn the Iraqis against us (like they were ever really "for" us coming in and taking over in the first place) and it is understandable why they are pulling car bombings, attacking our soldiers, and absolutely refusing to go along with the Administrations' program. THEY DO NOT WANT US THERE, THEY NEVER WANTED US THERE. The Iraqi people were not consulted before we decided to blow the hell out of them. And in my opinion, the families of the dead highly resent the fact that we felt it within our right to go in based on lies, and then continue to occupy the country when the original message was that we would be in remove Saddam, and then get the hell out and leave them to their new found freedoms.

There is no "real power" in Iraq right now. We have created a state of chaos and there definitely multiple factions trying to gain power. Yes, it is a power vacuum, but to state that Saddam is still the problem is to ignore the fact that the people of Iraq do not want him back, that the military will not support him (they didn't fight for him when we attacked), and the Kurds would not allow it.

The only way we are going to get out is to allow the UN to come in and bail our asses out. And the Bush administration is NOT about to let that happen, because they would have to give up total control.

[dreissig]

12. Insurmountable Obstacles

If America can't sustain a presence in Iraq - either directly or through a surrogate - then Saddam has a leg up on the competition to regain power. I don't agree that he's simply hiding out, I think he's a contender. In fact I think the Iraqis think he's just lying low.

I think it's significant that the secrecy about his whereabouts hasn't broken even after six months. I don't have a ready interpretation for it, but it's possible that the Iraqis aren't as venal as the Bush people thought they were. We were mistaken about the Vietnamese, too.

[leftofthedial]

4. I still say we should get a small UN force in place;

declare that we were fooled into invading--all a big mistake, sorry about that, etc. and that we'll pay reparations

announce are returning control of Iraq to the last legitimate (that is, internationally recognized) authority--Saddam

and leave.

We should do this tomorrow if possible.

[ArkDem]

5. What ould be the point of a small UN force if we reinstalled

Saddam? Blood offering?

[leftofthedial]

17. please read what I wrote.

I said "announce"

Saddam is probably dead. Even if he's not, there are forces in Iraq now that would prevent him from returning to power.

What we are seeing now in Iraq is a war of revolution in slow motion. At this rate, it will be a gradually escalating bloodbath for a long time, until we leave.

That will be followed by a civil war among the Baathists, Shiites, Kurds, secular non-Baathists and non-Iraquis. It will be another bloodbath.

There won't be peace in Iraq until the various incompatible forces within its borders find their own balance.

I'm just saying let them do it now instead of later.

[Name removed]

6. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Blue_Chill]

7. Put saddam back in power?

WTF? Are you joking?

If we do that the people in Iraq that died did so for nothing. At the very least there is real hope for a better tomorrow at the moment, if you put that killer back in office it's all for nothing!

[Scott Lee]

9. Look, people, Saddam is not coming back

If the USA were to pull out tomorrow, I sincerely believe that there would be no groundswell of Iraqi support to resuscitate Saddam Ba'athism. And since there was never any love lost between Saddam and me, I won't shed a tear.

From everything I've been gleaning about the Iraqi sentiments, left to their own devices once again (heaven forfend we let them determine their own affairs) they would most likely establish a pseudo-democratic Islamic state dominated by the Shi'a.

This ridiculous spectre of "Saddams Return" (pot up evil, reverbish laughter) is a strawman bandied about by rightwingers to scare away anti-war sentiment.

[dreissig]

14. Groundswell of Support

It's possible that terms like groundswell of support have no meaning in a country that has never been democratic. In fact we might learn from this experience that we really don't understand other societies as well as we think. We totally missed the hold that nationalism had on the people of Viet Nam. (The words mean "where we live".)

Saddam has one definite advantange over the Americans ... he's the Iraqis' legitimate leader. He got to the top the way those people expect their leaders to get to the top. He's also one of them, not one of us.

Nixon could have ended the war in Vietnam in 1969, but he thought "victory" was possible. He was such a clever American politician that it never occurred to him that he completely misunderstood the Vietnamese. Nixon's arrogance cost us 26,000 lives, and we never did achieve "victory".

[leftofthedial]

18. I agree

I think he's already dead. He may have been dead before the PNAC Invasion.

[dreissig]

16. It May Not Be Our Choice

It may not be our choice to "put" Saddam back in power. If the cost of the occupation gets too high, we'll have to leave. This is how the Vietnam War ended. We didn't "put" the Communists in power, they took over when we left.

It used to be called Saigon; today it's called Ho Chi Minh City. Nixon could have settled for that in 1969, but he was ill-informed enough to think that "victory" was possible in Vietnam. As the result of his mis-calculation, 26,000 Americans lost their lives. We lost anyhow.

[KharmaTrain]

8. The GOOP Endgame????

I've thought many times when and where this regime will play the "Saddam" and "Osama" cards in their effort to steal the next election. Both remain on the loose and the capture of one or both next October would sure be a nice oxygen-sucker in the closing days of a campaign...especially if other things are going bad

There's no question in my mind this is not beyond the manipulative nature of the Rove machine whose ultimate objective is not peace or prosperity but its own self-preservation. Saddam holds that card if this regime can keep the bleeding down and the bad news to a minimum. It's playing with fire.

There won't be any resolution to the Iraq mess with Saddam's status uncertain. People inside won't accept a new government with the sceptre of a Baathist revival/revolution/putsch hanging over their heads. The clock is ticking in American blood.

[dreissig]

15. Progress of the Iraq War

As the war in Iraq progresses, the resistance is learning American weaknesses. Just as in poker, opponents don't show their knowledge until the pot is big enough.

The Bush people are under pressure to identify Iraqis who can be trusted, and the sooner the better. If we can't disengage without being hugely worse off, the war and the occupation will be for nought. Time is not on the side of the Americans.

[spindoctor]

10. What bothers me...

Not only have they not captured Saddam, they haven't captured any of his 2 dozen lookalikes yet either. (remember?)

Now Saddam could have had plastical surgery to change his appearance, but that would leave his lookalikes nervously roaming the country side. If they took the group rate and all did the extreme make over thing, there would be a very suspicious looking group of middle-aged identical twentuplets walking around.

Doesn't anybody else worry about these things of importance?

[KharmaTrain]

11. Only Producers Of The History Channel

Sounds like a great episode between yet another Nazi special and the fascist marine sargent.

Our military is learning that even without all the whiz-bang toys our over-musclebound military needs to operate, Saddam learned how to play down and dirty and cheap as part of the embargo.

The hubris is that our great DOD minds never took into account that Saddam...ever the survivalist...would go underground rather than lose valuable human assets in a war he'd surely lose...and wait out American resolve through a war of attrition? Maybe I was in some paralell universe, but I've always thought that was his prime strategy and still do.

I'll assure you that the American presence in Iraq won't be the same a year from now than it currently is. Either we'll be out or hunkered down (hopefully within a U.N. multinational arrangement) or the bleeding will go on and so will the pressure on the WhistleAss regime either to rachet up the occupation or try to create another diversion...but the options are limited with the military stretch to almost breaking. And that also brings to question the "will" to fight our forces will have as months turn into years and the killing goes on.

Saddam has the cash to hold out for a long time and can lay low...just creating enough noise to keep the internal pot in Iraq stirred, maintain a martyr status in the Islamic World and re-emerge when a pussy-whipped American Army does another Saigon-style evacuation of Baghdad. Well...not quite that dramatic...more along the lines of the Soviet retreat from Afghanistan.

[dreissig]

13. Submarine Warfare

If the Americans knew where Saddam was they'd leave a huge crater where a building used to be. The game now is about waiting until he surfaces, and Bush doesn't have all the time in the world.

America has guessed wrong about the nature of political power in other societies. Nixon didn't want to concede defeat in Vietnam, and thought "peace with honor" was possible. It cost America 26,000 lives.

[quaker bill]

19. Haven't you heard, the attacks were done by "foreigners"?

There is always a rationale not to quit a bad idea.

I can't sell now the market is up...

I can't sell now the market is down...

If we just hold on a little longer, final victory will be in hand...

If we quit now, Saddam will come back...

If we quit now, a fundamentalist islamic regime will take over...

If we quit now, the profits of Halliburton will plummet...

So the logic is that because our occupation has enobled Saddam we should do more of it? Perhaps if we do it harder and longer...

If we kill him will he not be further enobled?

The whole thing was just a damn bad idea. We need to recognize this as a losing proposition based on lies. We need to look at Israel and get the notion 50 years of aggressive occupation of arab land does not bring peace and democracy any where. It is time to end this and bring our troops home as quickly as possible.

Maintaining the illusion of control of events is a first order sign of a dependent personality or a drunk. The belief that we can conrol the course of events with military power is just such an illusion. We cannot end this soon enough.

[maha]

20. Saddam couldn't take the entire country back again.

He probably does have some influence in the area around Tikrit, but that's about it.

The real worry is that without somebody in control, the country will quickly dissolve into civil war among Sunnis and Shias and Kurds, and you'd have some parts of the country run by Iranian-based mullahs and other parts run by Wahabi extremists and some other chunks run by warlords, and they'd be at war all the time.