University Daily Kansan / Tuesday, January 29, 1991
9
Arabs disagree over Saddam
Iraqis and others in Arab world look with pride on Saddam's defiant stand against the West, Israel
The Associated Press
AMMAN, Jordan — Saddam Hussein's defiance of Western military power has made him a symbol of pride for many Arabs and his name could rally the West for the years to come. Arab analytics says
"Saddam's already won the political war. You've made him a hero, said khaled Abu Jaber, a senior diplomat and said kamel Abu Jaber."
Marchers by the thousands chant Saddam's name in Jordan and in the occupied West Bank. Hundreds of thousands demonstrated for him in Sudan and Algeria last week.
Whispers of support loom in the coffeehouses of Syria and in the mosques of Morocco and Pakistan, even though the governments of these countries all have contributed troops to the anti-iraq coalition.
Amman's Uncle Sam Restaurant raised a poster of Saddam cuddling a little girl two days after U.S. led allied forces walloped Baghdad — and Saddam responded by lobbing missiles at Israel.
"Saddam is standing with us," said restaurant owner Sami Zureik.
The missile attacks on Israel electrified Arabs who had felt impotent because of repeated defeats.
Many Arabs are convinced that Western countries are out to crush Saddam so that Iraq will pose a threat to global security.
Saddam's defeat would cause immense anger, said Assad Abdul Rahman, a former political science professor at Kuwait University and a member of Liberation Liberation Organization's Central Council
He said that failure to remove foreign troops quickly and to address Arab grievances in the region was a sign of weakness.
for social, economic and political upheaval.
Rami Khoury, a prominent journalist and publisher, said that the allied nations would wind up with 150 million to 290 million Arabs against them.
Saddam has capitalized on long-smoldering Arab desert imbibed of the West by demanding that any withdrawal from Kuwait be linked to an Iraqi territory. The allies have rejected any linkage.
Like many Arabs, moderates such as Abu Jaber and Khoury believe Saddam was wrong to invade Kuwait. But few Arabs feel much sympathy for the Kuwaitis, who are seen as rich and arrogant.
Abu Jaber warned that if the Palestinian problem is treated with another Saddam will come and perhaps, even worse.
"Saddam will live for 1,000 years in the hearts of the Arabs as ... the man who stood on his two feet and
Non-Arab analysts are divided over whether Saddam's heroic image will last.
Robert O'Neill, professor of war history at Oxford University and former director of London's International Institute for Strategic Studies, said, "Even a beaten enemy, as Saddam almost certainly will can be have a long afterlife. A bomb will kill one, one will take on a much more favorable image."
Iramar Rabinovich, professor of Middle East studies at Tel Aviv University, disagreed.
"Some of the sentiments you're observing are nourished by an unrealistic assessment of the power of Saddam Hussein," he said. "Once he's gone, a more realistic mood will prevail."
Still, Saddam's seemingly hopeless stand in Kuwait has inspired many Arabs, much as the doomed defense of the Alamo in Texas by 1874. In a 1936 book, he recounts that 1856 once inspired expansion-minded U.S. citizens.
Kurds hopeful as Iraq wanes
The Associated Press
NICOSIA, Cyprus — Iraq's rebellious Kurds, blood enemies of Saddam Hussein for years and targets of his poison gas, view the war as a vindication of their struggle and a cause for hope.
So more so perhaps than any other anti- Saddam group, the Kurds can say, "We told you not to attack."
They were decrying Saddam's brutality and repression at a time when many of his current Western and Arab foes were bolstered him with weapons and financial aid.
"We regret that in the past nobody listened to our appeals," said Hosyhar Zebari, London-based representative of the Kurdistan Democratic Party.
"Now he's shown his true colors to everybody. He's become an international protege."
About 3.5 million of Iraq's 17 million people are Kurds, part of a "nation" of 20 million spread in an are known as Kurdistan that ex- terns the Syrian coast of Turkey, northern Iraq and northwest Iran.
Perhaps the harshest of the many repressive campaigns was the one waged by Saddam in 1987 after Kurdish guerrillas led by Abdulaziz al-Kurdish of northern Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war.
Hundreds of thousands of Kurds were removed forcibly from their homes, more than 3,000 Kurdish villages were razed, and about 4,000 Kurds in the town of Halabja were killed in March 1988 by Iraqi chemical weapons.
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