Clinton Least To Blame For Iraq

Saddam Hussein is attacking the Kurds of Iraq with tanks, heavy artillery, infantry and a particularly powerful weapon that he acquired only when the gulf war ended.

The weapon is the knowledge that although the United States could defeat him in a battle, even in a war, it did not conquer him because it did not have the willpower, nor the sophistication, to grasp the overriding goals of dictatorships, and specifically his own.

Americans see his attack as one more mad Saddam mistake. How could any sane man take on the West again after being smashed in the gulf war and strangled by international sanctions?

The answers are that he was not smashed or strangled. Iraq was left with planes he can use against his domestic enemies in part of his domain and with tanks, armor and troops he can use in most of the rest.

Most important: He was not only allowed to remain alive and free, but surrounded by his henchmen, his SS executioners and crack divisions - the apparatus of his power - plus secret chemical weaponry and nuclear technology.

Sanctions took away neither his total dictatorship nor the ability to slaughter Kurds or other dissenters. The army and equipment left to him by the U.S.-led coalition are entirely sufficient to do that.

The attack against Kurds living in the “safe haven” of the north was not some wild throw of the dice - any more than was the seizure of Kuwait.

In Kuwait, he was out to achieve control of Middle East oil. In Kurd territory he fights for goals even more important to him - control over every inch of Iraq and to prove to the Muslim world that as long as he draws breath he intends to work his will, and has the power to do so when it matters to him.

Kurds matter. They are non-Arab Muslims living in Iraq, Turkey, Iran and Azerbaijan, with their own language, history and identity. So they are seen as enemies by dictators who fear their Kurds and other minorities more than Western power.

Saddam made slaughtering Kurds his first goal when he found himself alive after the gulf war. Eventually the United Nations made Kurdish areas in Iraq a “protected zone.” But the United States allowed Saddam to keep his artillery and tanks within attack range.

Under years of his shelling and intense Iranian political maneuvering, the unity of Kurdish political groups, almost always suicidally fragile, cracked open. The Kurdish Democratic Party threw in with Saddam against the other major party, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan.

Why should any Westerners care which Kurds come out on top? For this reason: By making one party his puppet and defeating the other he hopes to wipe out the identity of all Iraqi Kurds.

Turkey and Iran will help him one way or another out of fear that Middle East Kurds will get together for a separate state. Turks matter too - much more to Washington than nationless Kurds. So the United States has become a proponent of Iraqi territorial unity. That will interest Americans gassed in the gulf.

U.S. intelligence failed to understand that Saddam’s military moves last week were prelude to an attack against the Kurds. Months ago, the State Department was warned by the Patriotic Union that pressures to follow Tehran were intensifying.

Now Republicans attack President Clinton - the American leader least to blame. Republican Bob Dole spoke pure smarm to Saddam before the gulf war. Republican George Bush took the advice of Republican Colin Powell to announce the gulf war won and leave Saddam with political and military strength.

It’s too late for glass house rocks. But the president is expected to order more military action. The immediate objective should be to make Saddam move his artillery, troops and tanks permanently out of range of Kurdish territory, bombing them first to press the point home. Follow the initiative of U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali and cancel loosening of oil sanctions.

This will not solve the disaster visited on all Iraqis by the decision to let the killer wolf out of the trap. That was the real wild roll of the dice in the gulf war - and lost. And that is part of Saddam’s new weapon of knowledge about the West, which is carrying him to the battlefield now and will again, somewhere else.

xxxx