Here are two pieces on a subject that may be upon us soon enough in the new year — the nature of post-Saddam Iraq. Dilip Hiro in the Nation magazine focuses on American efforts to create an Iraqi opposition worthy of the name (and it’s lack of interest in offering any of those Iraqis real power); Jim Lobe of Foreign Policy in Focus discusses the squabbling within the Bush administration over the nature of American policy in a postwar Iraq (a squabbling that extends to which Iraqi factions the administration should support).
Of course, “planning” for a post-Saddam Iraq may now seem like the height of realism, but it’s worth keeping in mind that we humans — policy-makers no less than the rest of us — are pathologically inaccurate speculators about the future, and that nothing is more likely to hold unexpected surprises than a train of events let loose by war. Much of what now passes for hard-nosed planning may soon enough look like the worst sort of dreaming. Tom
The Post-Saddam Problem
By Dilip Hiro
The Nation Magazine
January 6, 2003After several postponements, a US-sponsored meeting of Iraqi opposition groups and individuals took place in London on December 14-15.
The main resolutions adopted by some 330 delegates to the Iraqi Open Opposition Conference reiterated their often-repeated commitment to the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and the introduction of democracy in Iraq.
“It was not the opposition Iraqis but the Americans who needed this gathering, eager to show they had broad support among diverse opposition groups,” says Dr. Mustafa Alani of the Royal United Services Institute, London. “Whatever show of unity the opposition leaders managed to project will be short-lived. They will go back to devoting more space in their publications to attacking one another than Saddam.”
After several postponements, a US-sponsored meeting of Iraqi opposition groups and individuals took place in London on December 14-15.
The main resolutions adopted by some 330 delegates to the Iraqi Open Opposition Conference reiterated their often-repeated commitment to the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and the introduction of democracy in Iraq.
“It was not the opposition Iraqis but the Americans who needed this gathering, eager to show they had broad support among diverse opposition groups,” says Dr. Mustafa Alani of the Royal United Services Institute, London. “Whatever show of unity the opposition leaders managed to project will be short-lived. They will go back to devoting more space in their publications to attacking one another than Saddam.”
Debating Post-Saddam Policy:
Hardliners v. Realpolitikers
By Jim Lobe
Foreign Policy in Focus
December 20, 2002While U.S. military strategists are refining their plans for invading Iraq early next year, the configuration of a post-invasion Iraq remains a matter of hot debate within the administration of President George W. Bush. The debate breaks along lines that have become very familiar to those who have followed the administration’s foreign policy since Bush first took office.
On one side are the neoconservative and unilateralist hawks in and around the offices of Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, but who also have key allies strategically placed in the National Security Council and the State Department. On the other side are the more internationalist realpolitikers led by Secretary of State Colin Powell and senior career officers in the foreign service, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the military itself. They are aided by former top officials in the George H.W. Bush administration (1989-1993).
Jim Lobe <[email protected]> is a political analyst with Foreign Policy In Focus.