Saddam's Options

By George J. Church.

War or peace -- the fundamental decision rests with Saddam Hussein, as it has since the beginning of the crisis. And it will probably be made, or at least disclosed, at the last possible instant. Somewhere around 11:59 p.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 15, U.S. Eastern Standard Time -- one minute before what the American State Department considers the deadline (the United Nations has specified only the date). Or maybe on Jan. 16 or 18 or 23, or Feb. 6 or even later should President Bush take a bit longer to gear up for war. If the Iraqi dictator tries some final maneuver to forestall the assault, says William Quandt, a leading American expert on the Middle East, he will spring it "when he hears the tank motors rev up."

Or perhaps he will do nothing at all -- just wait for war. Or even strike first. In theory at least, Saddam's options run from capitulation -- that is, the total and unconditional withdrawal from Kuwait that the U.N. demands -- to deliberately precipitating Gotterdammerung. Assessing which he is likely to choose is a peculiarly baffling task. Constraints that would hog-tie any democratic politician and most dictators mean little to Saddam. His record suggests willingness to sacrifice hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives if that would advance his goals even a few inches.

Those goals seem reasonably, though not altogether, clear. Though there is some opinion that Saddam might eventually opt for martyrdom, the consensus of American, European and Middle East experts is that his primary goal is survival -- of himself first and then of his power and specifically his military machine. Second comes expansion of that power. Saddam longs to be recognized by his fellow Arabs and ultimately the U.S. superpower as the dominant force in the Middle East.

Saddam has said that his ambition is to become an Arab Bismarck. Like 19th century Germany, the Arab world shares a common language and culture but is splintered politically. Saddam dreams of welding it into a single, powerful unit -- with himself at the head, of course. The Iraqi leader can make tactical retreats, but he will try to solve the Kuwait crisis in whatever way seems to him most likely to promote those goals, or at least deal them the smallest setback.

The trouble is that Saddam's ideas of what would accomplish his aims do not necessarily mesh with the West's -- or with reality. He has a dangerous penchant for misjudging his enemies; witness the 1980 attack on Iran that began a bloody and futile eight-year war. Even friendly Arab diplomats find him distressingly provincial. He has rarely been outside the Arab world and knows as little of the West and its thought processes as Western politicians know of his. Courses that seem senseless or downright suicidal to analysts in Washington, Paris or even Cairo do not necessarily look that way to the boss of Baghdad.

Nonetheless, it is possible to figure out what Saddam could do. Not only is his range of options extraordinarily broad, but few of them are mutually exclusive. He could pursue several in combination or in sequence. In escalating order, they are:

WITHDRAWAL

Total, unconditional withdrawal seems the least likely choice, but it cannot be entirely ruled out. It would keep Saddam's army, chemical and bacteriological weapons and nuclear potential intact; the U.S. has already promised publicly that the anti-Saddam coalition will not attack Iraq if its troops leave Kuwait. Bush has even hinted that Iraq could negotiate its border disputes with Kuwait and perhaps get an international conference on the Palestinian problem convened. Saddam might view these as sufficient concessions to enable him to continue posturing as the strongman of the Middle East. On the other hand, recalls a Bush adviser, "we have said ourselves that Saddam probably would be overthrown and assassinated by his own people if he withdrew unconditionally from Kuwait." Though many experts doubt that this would happen, the dictator might have to be convinced that he runs an even greater risk of being killed in a war that only a complete pullout could avert.

Partial withdrawal would be an entirely different matter. Under the most frequently rumored scheme, Iraq would pull out of most of Kuwait but keep the southern part of the rich Rumaila oil field and the islands of Bubiyan and Warba, which would allow unimpeded access to the Persian Gulf. Bush and the U.S. allies have branded partial withdrawal unacceptable, since it would reward Saddam for aggression. But, says Michael Dewar, deputy director of London's International Institute for Strategic Studies, that move "paralyzes Washington's military option." It would be difficult if not impossible to justify a war costing thousands of casualties for such a small sliver of territory. Moreover, since that sliver approximates Iraq's initial demands on Kuwait, Saddam could plausibly claim that he had won what he really wanted. Some American and allied officials refer to this as "the nightmare scenario" since they think it represents Saddam's best chance of escaping punishment and remaining a menace for the future. But Saddam might see an even better choice.

Phased withdrawal might offer the Iraqi dictator the greatest chance of salvaging something from his Kuwait adventure besides his skin. Saddam would announce that in two weeks, 90 days or whenever, he would begin withdrawing some troops from part of Kuwait, and maybe more later. How many initially, how many subsequently, how fast, from how much of Kuwait? That would all depend on what terms the allies and the U.N. offered to have him continue the pullout.

ANGLING FOR A DEAL

Saddam is already dangling various ideas for a so-called compromise before European and Arab visitors. The aim is to divide and weaken the coalition against him. At best, in his view, allies terrified of war would bring irresistible pressure on Bush to delay war or, if it begins, agree to a quick cease-fire and negotiations for a compromise settlement. In Saddam's view, forcing or luring the U.S. into negotiating would in itself be a victory of sorts; it would amount, he thinks, to Washington's recognition of his paramount role in the Middle East.

An Arab solution is one of the leading ideas. Saddam, probably acting through a mediator such as Jordan's King Hussein or Algerian President Chadli Bendjedid, would say to his fellow Arabs, in effect, "Forget the Americans; they are interlopers here. Let's call a special meeting of the Arab League and work out our own settlement of this unfortunate split in the Arab world." Some possible terms: Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait in return for a pullout of all American and other foreign forces from Arab countries; perhaps elections -- which Saddam would have a good chance of rigging -- to set up a new regime in Kuwait that would negotiate a settlement of border and oil disputes with Iraq. Robert Keeley, director of the Middle East Institute in Washington, warns that the U.S. might not like such a solution but its opinion would be "irrelevant"; it could hardly wage war on Iraq without bases in Saudi Arabia and the gulf sheikdoms. Such a settlement would leave the Saudis, the sheikdoms, Egypt and others to face future Iraqi aggression or bullying without U.S. protection. But they could come under heavy pressure from their own people to go along anyway. However, Yasser Arafat, head of the Palestine Liberation Organization, has been proposing such a compromise for months now without success.

A Middle East peace conference to tackle all the problems of the area at once is Saddam's principal lure for the Europeans. The idea would be to exchange Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait for an agreement forcing Israel to give up the West Bank and Gaza and let the Palestinians who live there form their own state. Saddam might even propose some form of chemical and nuclear disarmament throughout the region -- meaning Israel as well as Iraq. Such an outcome would make Saddam a glowing hero to the Arab masses, the first leader in 40 years to humble Israel and accomplish something for the Palestinians. Even if he had to surrender Kuwait, Saddam's chances of eventually dominating the region might increase. For exactly that reason, the U.S. opposes any direct linkage between a Middle East conference and a settlement in Kuwait as yet another reward for Saddam's aggression. But France and some other European allies -- though emphatically not Britain -- would snap at the chance, if they could talk Bush into going along. One rumor last week was that Saddam would combine elements of several ideas, promising through Arab intermediaries that he will agree in principle to pull out of Kuwait -- when and how fully left vague -- in return for an international conference on Palestine.

PLAYING CHICKEN

Saddam could elect to do nothing. No withdrawal, total or partial, nor any promise of one; no further hints at a compromise deal; nothing. He would simply dig in deeper in Kuwait and dare Bush to put up or shut up on his threats to expel Iraq by force. That would amount to a hair-raising game of chicken in which Saddam would be betting that Bush would turn away first. Possibly, or so the Iraqi dictator seems to think, the American President will lose his nerve at the last second. Or perhaps Congress, the U.S. public and the allies will be so horrified by the potential casualties of a Middle East war that they will force Bush to back down. Either way, Saddam wins big. At a minimum, the deadline for war would be put off for months or indefinitely while the anti-Saddam coalition gave economic sanctions more time to work. At most, it would be Bush rather than Saddam who proposed a compromise in order to avoid war -- and Saddam's prestige in the Arab world as the leader who faced down a superpower and won would skyrocket.

The greater possibility, of course, is that Bush is not bluffing, and a continued game of chicken will end in a devastating war that Saddam will lose. There is a nagging worry in both Washington and the Middle East that Saddam's lack of familiarity with the West is leading him into a gargantuan misjudgment that nobody will try to correct. Saddam's advisers during the crisis, says a friend of the dictator, "are not sophisticated people," and in any case they "treat him like a hero. No one dares to say, 'Mr. President, we might be heading for a disaster.' Personally, I think he is misreading Bush. He believes Bush will not fight."

Alternatively, though, Saddam might be, or become, convinced that Bush will indeed fight and still do nothing to head off a war. To Western eyes, that course might seem like suicidal lunacy. But to Saddam it might appear to offer the final, menacing but strangely tempting set of options.

CHOOSING WAR

War, says Edward Peck, a former U.S. diplomat who served in Iraq, "is not the worst thing that Saddam Hussein can imagine." Even if he loses? Maybe. If he has to give up most or all of Kuwait anyway, why not fight first? His status in the Arab world might actually rise. After all, he would be expected to lose a fight with a superpower, but he might well gain respect for standing up to the U.S. hard and long. In both the U.S. State Department and the Middle East, experts note apprehensively that Egyptian Presidents Gamal Abdel Nasser in 1956 and Anwar Sadat in 1973 suffered severe military beatings yet gained heavily in prestige -- Nasser so much so that he became the predominant leader of the Arab world. True, the analogies are very far from perfect. The U.N. and U.S. in effect reversed Nasser's 1956 defeat after a cease-fire, bringing , political pressure that forced the British, French and Israelis who had invaded Egypt to pull out again and leave Nasser in control of the Suez Canal. Sadat gained in stature because he had the gumption to start a war with Israel, only to be isolated later because he had the still greater nerve to negotiate a peace treaty with the Israelis. Nonetheless, opponents are afraid the lesson Saddam will draw is that in the Arab world a leader can win by losing.

And anyway, Saddam may believe he can in some sense win. Given the size, technical sophistication and firepower of the forces arrayed against him, that looks like the wildest miscalculation of all. But the cost of proving him wrong, in blood, economic chaos and political upheaval, could be ghastly -- and that, in fact, may be exactly what Saddam is counting on to make his enemies give up the fight before he suffers a decisive defeat. Says Barry Rubin, senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy: "He is a great believer that victory eventually comes to the side willing to suffer most." During the now famous meeting with U.S. Ambassador April Glaspie in which she signaled that the U.S. had no interest in an Iraq-Kuwait dispute, Saddam told her that "yours is a society which cannot accept 10,000 dead in one battle" -- whereas Iraq had done exactly that during its war with Iran.

Saddam's potential victory scenario comes in two different versions:

Fight a defensive war. The aim would be to survive the American aerial blitz that would open the war and then force or lure the U.S. and its allies into a series of grinding, fearsomely bloody frontal assaults on heavily dug-in Iraqi positions -- a recrudescence, 75-odd years later, of World War I-style trench warfare. That would be accompanied by some of the biggest tank battles ever fought, which would also be destructive and bloody. The allies might suffer huge losses so quickly that they would speedily sue for peace or perhaps accede to a panicky U.N. call for a cease-fire (shades of Nasser in 1956). If not, a drawn-out war might fan the worst American fears of "another Vietnam" and eventually build irresistible pressure on Bush to offer some sort of compromise settlement.

Saddam could be very, very wrong. The aerial and naval bombardment of the early stages could prove quickly decisive, not only wreaking immense destruction but also breaking Baghdad's communications with the troops in Kuwait and cutting off those soldiers from food, water, ammunition and / reinforcements. Even in an eventual ground assault on well-entrenched positions, the allied forces would have enormous technical advantages: satellite intelligence pinpointing Iraqi deployments, and devices that make visibility at night almost as great as in the day, to name only two. Even in a drawn-out war, the Iraqi troops -- fighting without allies, cut off from foreign supplies by the embargo, and with their own munitions factories under incessant aerial bombardment -- would lack staying power; every bullet they fired would deplete a shrinking supply. The trouble, once again, is that Saddam may simply not see any of that. Western military men fear he has little idea of the fury and firepower of a high-tech attack. His mental picture of war, derived from the long struggle with Iran, is of trenches, minefields and barbed wire foiling human-wave assaults. Further, he might reckon that even if he lost, he would save his skin and some part of his military force; the anti- Saddam coalition is pledged only to push the Iraqi forces out of Kuwait, not to drive on to Baghdad.

Go on the offensive. If Saddam nonetheless doubted his ability to win a purely defensive fight, he has three options for carrying the war to the enemy:

1) Attack Israel. Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz said last week that Iraq "yes, absolutely, yes" would strike the Jewish state. From a narrow military viewpoint that might seem extraordinarily stupid. Israel's missiles and bombers could rain far more destruction on Baghdad than Saddam's mostly short-range and inaccurate missiles could wreak on Tel Aviv. But Saddam's aim would be political: converting what Bush has often called a struggle of "Iraq against the world" into a battle pitting "the Arab nation" against Israel, the U.S. and their stooges in Riyadh and Cairo.

2) Attack the Saudi oil installations. Military experts consider Saddam's missiles too inaccurate to do much damage -- if he even got them off the ground before American bombers destroyed them. But if perchance Saddam could put a crimp in Saudi oil production, or even cause Western traders to fear that he might, the payoff would be immense. Panic might push oil prices to $50, $80, even $100 a barrel. Western economies would be rocked by uncontrollable inflation, deepening depression, heavy unemployment; financial markets would nosedive.

3) Ignite terrorism on a scale never seen before. Bombings, hijackings, kidnappings, murders would strike Americans and citizens of other allied ! nations not only throughout the Middle East but also in Europe and quite possibly in the U.S. This strategy could backfire. Terrorist outrages often inspire fury and a burning desire to hit back; that rage might overwhelm the doubts of many Americans who are now dubious about, if not outright opposed to, war. Still, terrorism is an option Saddam could turn to, perhaps in combination with assaults on Israel and on Saudi oil installations, to convince Americans and other opponents that the price of defeating him is much higher than they imagine.

Some of Saddam's options look shrewd, some dubious, some self-destructive. And the Iraqi dictator has not always seemed able to distinguish which is which. Several Congressmen declare that Tariq Aziz's stonewalling in his meeting last week with Secretary of State James Baker, coupled with Saddam's threat that American servicemen would "swim in their own blood" if war came, probably swung dozens of previously doubtful votes behind a resolution authorizing Bush to use force against Iraq, an outcome Saddam certainly did not want. Says a White House official charged with lobbying for that resolution: "Saddam is really a made-to-order villain. He's playing his part better than we could have written it."

For the purpose of winning votes in Congress, perhaps. But not for many others. A leader unable to understand his adversaries, and living in a different mental world than the one they inhabit, can be the most dangerous of all -- precisely because his choice among available options can backfire so bloodily.

With reporting by Scott MacLeod/Baghdad, William Mader/London and J.F.O. McAllister/Washington