2002 Column Archives
High Noon for Saddam
By John Sammon
Nov 11, 2002, 18:26

A few weeks back, Senator John McCain said during a televised interview, that Saddam Hussein could save himself and his regime simply by seeing reason, and allowing arms inspectors back into the country.

With all due respect to McCain’s obvious physical courage, he must have said this for the viewer’s benefit, and doesn’t believe it himself. If he does, he’s incredibly naïve, or a bad judge of bad character. For someone who spent years as a prisoner of fanatics (Vietnamese communists) himself, this is an almost unbelievable lapse.

The simple fact is………Saddam can’t allow inspectors in. If he backs down before the Western powers now, he’ll look like a lackey. His people won’t hold him in dread, and in awe.

Awe can only be achieved by being belligerent and getting away with it.

A regime built on fear must generate fear, and conquest to survive. It’s like a house of cards, very brittle. All it takes is one disgrace or loss of face to come tumbling down.

Saddam knows it. Why doesn’t McCain?

Saddam has two choices, and only two.

He can give in to Western demands and allow arms inspectors, thus weakening his dictatorship, emboldening the opponents in his own country, in which case he’s likely to be ousted and killed.

Or, he can take on the West and at the very worst, die a martyr’s death, become an Arabic hero and go to Islamic Valhalla.

He can either die as a spat-upon dog, or a hero. Which would you choose?

Just days ago, the United Nations adopted a resolution demanding Iraq allow inspections, and I’ve got to give President Bush his due, because it represents a major achievement. The UN sanction makes it harder for Saddam, who wanted to keep the crisis a strictly big-bad-United States-picking-on-poor-little-Iraq scenario.

I’ve been critical of Bush in past columns, not so much for his tough stance on Iraq, but his insane “preemption” policy in which the U.S. will bomb any country it even suspects of hostile intent, whether or not the country committed a hostile act or not.

I have noticed Bush was smart enough to curb his saber-rattling speeches of a month ago, in which he said things like, “UN, if you don’t have the guts, get the f……out of the way,” or “we’ll go it alone.”

The UN by its very nature is a deliberative body organized to prevent wars, not a war-making cabinet, or a rubber stamp. Disagreement is allowed.

Bush’s early angry rhetoric only antagonized people and made consensus more difficult, and it’s to his credit he woke up and recognized this.

I guess the guy isn’t as dumb a sock puppet as his detractors say.

I think our elected officials (like McCain) should take basic courses in understanding fanatics.

Read a related column.