European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - March 1, 1991, Darmstadt, Hesse Friday March 1/1991 the stars and stripes Page 13 commentary Elaine Sciolino How could Saddam miscalculate so badly Washington. A behind Saddam Hussein a humiliating defeat in Kuwait is a simple question with a complicated answer How Cotile the iraqi Leader have so badly miscalculated the political will and the military Power of his enemy 1 the coalition members in their Public and private diplomacy since the invasion of Kuwait on aug. 2�?z had warned Saddam Over and Over that if he chose to stay and fight he risked the destruction of his military his. Political future and his country. But the message had a somehow not gotten through to him. And once the War started even the devastation of his country a military political and Industrial infrastructure did not move Saddam to give in. In choosing to fight Saddam was motivated by five overlapping sometimes contradictory impulses some suggesting that he knew he would lose others indicating that he believed he could win. First in the months before the War Saddam saw War As inevitable. Instead of listening to the signals As they grew More ominous he ignored them. He told a num her of visitors that when faced with either a political or a military defeat he chose to lose militarily. A i know i am going to lose a Saddam told a French envoy Pierre Rauzelle in Early january echoing statements made in october to Yevgeny m. Primakow a top soviet official on the Middle East. A a at least i will have the death of a hero.�?�. According to a French Diplomat familiar with the meeting a Saddam said it with some resignation As change the course of history a the Arab ability to Saddam held the rank of Field marshal but he has never been a military Man. When asked at the military briefing in saudi Arabia on wednesday about what he thought of Saddam As a strategist Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf summed it up in the first word of his answer. A Shah a he said. Saddam was not a Soldier not a general not a strategist not a tactician he said. The iraqi president believed that the War against the coalition would replicate the Iran Iraq War and that he could fight it and win it with the same strategy and de finses. Lie used a three tier defense of fortified de finses along the kuwaiti Border mechanized forces in reserved and the Republican guard As he had done in the later successful stages of the eight year Border War. America had the technology he said in a speech to an islamic conference in Baghdad on Jan. 11 that revealed his strategy but he had the experience. He also had a million Man army. Even if he lost three fourths of it in a War against the allies he a would still be left with about the same size military he controlled on the eve of the Iran Iraq War in 1980. 1 third Saddam viewed the debate inherent in Western democracies As evidence of weakness and believed that he could outlast american will in any War. An avid viewer of can according to president Hosni Mubarak of Egypt Saddam misinterpreted the networks . Rosenthal distributed by King Syndicate 1$ab>wu count Kat Minim age of the congressional debate Over american policy on the Gulf As evidence that such a divided country would not go to War. Fourth Saddam gambled that in losing militarily he might win politically. Although the analogy did not fit aides in Baghdad on the eve of the War compared his plight to that of Gamel Abdel Nasser of Egypt in 1967, who was Defeated militarily in the Arab israeli War but held on politically a albeit bloodied and beaten. There was a fifth reason for Saddam a miscalculations related More to his character than his political Outlook. Saddam was a Leader who Rose through the ranks of the baath socialist party not As a political strategist but As an underground guerrilla. As his speeches and actions Over the years made Clear the language he Best understood was the use of Force. If the Iran Iraq War was a guide Saddam was not particularly skilled in the Art of negotiating. In August Ess than two weeks after the invasion of Kuwait sad pc dam suddenly abandoned his War demands in order to free iraqi troops from the iranian Border and Curry favor with Iran. The iranians readily accepted the Deal. When Saddam tried to negotiate his Way out of the Gulf crisis he did not know now to do it. In a formula worked out with the soviets he abandoned without explanation his demand that a Resolution of the Gulf crisis be linked to a Resolution of the palestinian Issue. And by the time he agreed to withdraw from Kuwait he was incapable of finding a negotiating starting Point acceptable to Washington. For Schwarzkopf there was another explanation for Saddam a miscalculations. In an interview this month with . News amp world report the Allied commander said that the americans a have several reports that sad dam is a very distraught Man that he has three doctors treating him with Tranquili Zers which May say some thing about his mental state.�?�. The now York times. A a a a a a a a Quot a a a of a a War ends but. Little will change in Mideast Saddam Hussein has lost with the War ending far More quickly than any major War in history and in Complete coalition Victory. We must never again allow the United states or any other country to Arm our potential Nenkies a As the soviet Union and Germany armed Iraq with the scuds and technology that killed . Troops in saudi Arabia. About the Middle East we know that it will be changed in at least one important Way a the end of Saddam Hussein. But we know also that the Middle East will remain largely the same old place a War prone politically archaic and oppressive for almost All its Arab population. The chances for decent change Quot rest on two dim Hopes _ a a j one is that the Arab rulers will learn from the War that unless they give their subjects a decent social break they will always be touching their crowns to see if they Are still there. The other is that As the result of this last bitter disappointment the palestinian arabs will take a look at themselves and their movement and understand that they have been the dupes of the Arab rulers to whom they had looked for Succour. Saddam their latest false Prophet will either be dead chained in one of his own dungeons or living in nervous exile in some steamy capital waiting for an Arab or israeli execution squad to get through to him. The american Public president Bush and Arab coalition leaders have one thing in common. They do not wish anybody a children to have to face him again. They want him out. The United states has plenty of leverage it can use a including embargoes and War crime trials. But even without Saddam the social contracts of political and economic decency needed to liberate the Middle East from its own history do not yet exist. Most Middle Eastern countries Are ruled by dictators who used the sword to take Power oppression to solidify it and the propaganda of hatred to maintain it. They teach their subjects to hate Christian jew hindu a and except in periods of need foreign nations. A villain is kept at hand to blame instead of the rulers responsible. No arabs suffered More than pales winians. Decade after decade Arab rulers taught them that their trouble was the result of a capitalist communist zionist a conspiracy. They led them into wars and defeats. They saw to it that the hard knot of palestinian bitterness never dissolved. Millions Are kept in miserable refugee Camps. Palestinians Are denied citizenship in Many Arab lands. Arab governments made puppets of the leaders of the palestinian movement through the Palestine liberation organization. Puppets and puppeteers guaranteed that palestinians could never Deal straightforwardly with Israel to Settle their grievances they wrote a death to Israel oath into the Plo charter. New the Only Hope for the palestinians is to recognize that not Israel but the Plo is dead american sycophants of the Plo who Tell them otherwise Are preparing More tragedy for palestinians. Palestinians need a new Start divorced _ not Only from Yasser Arafat that world class failure but from the oaths Struc Ture and terrorists of the . Only that break will Clear the ground for real negotiation with Israel. Nobody negotiates with a sworn killer. A a a a Quot an israeli offer for palestinian elections leading to self government but not Independence is on the table. The israeli government should go ahead with it in open heart instead of adding extremists to the Cabinet an act opposed by almost All of israelis friends. But palestinians should understand that after they cheered the scud attacks on Israel even the elections proposal will face opposition from a Large Section of the israeli new palestinian movement could become the first in the Arab world to break with the life of hatred and War imposed by Arab rulers. That would Start real change in the Middle East. It would be the palestinians gift to other Arab Peoples twisted and manipulated by leaders they never chose. A moment of historic Choice is coming for palestinians. Such moments exist rarely and briefly. 7 c new Yorac times
