Anti-war did not mean Pro-Saddam by Amin Saikal The Age 10:28am 7th Mar, 2004   March 6, 2004    "Anti-war did not mean Pro-Saddam" by Amin Saikal (Published by the The Age)    It is disconcerting to see Australian Prime Minister John Howard and Minister for Foreign Affairs Alexander Downer seeking to cover up their own failures in going to war with Iraq by attacking the opponents of the war as supporters of Saddam Hussein. But this was something to be expected, given the Howard Government's record in massaging and manipulating facts to suit its political agenda.    No one that I know in the anti-war camp in Australia ever gave the slightest indication of support for Saddam or wished the Iraqi dictator to remain in power. It was clear from the start to all informed opponents of the war that Saddam led one of the most brutal and murderous regimes on the planet.    Many of us had repeatedly argued for the removal of the regime well before Howard and Downer decided - just before the start of the war - to break off diplomatic relations and discontinue lucrative commercial deals with that regime.    At no point before 2002 had the Howard Government voiced a concerted criticism of the Saddam regime on the grounds of being inhuman and barbaric, and therefore worthy of being forcefully removed from power for the sake of liberating the Iraqi people.    Even when the Howard Government joined the Bush Administration to argue for regime change in Iraq, it was primarily on the grounds that the regime possessed weapons of mass destruction and posed a serious security threat.    At no point from mid-2002 until just before the start of the war in March 2004, did Howard or any of his ministers advance a case for the removal of the regime for humanitarian reasons. It was mainly in the two weeks leading up to the war that, while faced with mounting criticism that it had not made a compelling WMD-based case for Australia's participation in the war, the Howard Government suddenly shifted gear by attacking the character of Saddam's rule and emphasising the need to "liberate" the Iraqi people. Even in this respect our Government took its cue from Washington and London.    Meanwhile, as the brutal nature of Saddam's rule was being emphasised, the Howard Government was busy negotiating trade deals with Libya and resuming diplomatic relations with that country. It had no qualms about the fact that Muammar Gaddafi's regime had been accused of as many misdeeds as those levelled against Saddam's rule.    The concern of most in the anti-war camp was that a war that did not have the support of the international community and flouted international law and was most unlikely to make the region and the world safer or to diminish the threat of international terrorism.    Our main argument was that it was likely to make life more miserable for the Iraqi people, add to regional volatility and provide further fertile ground for al-Qaeda to expand its operations and gain wider sympathy among Arabs and Muslims for its causes, and deepen anti-American anger in the region and beyond.    We stressed that such a war would not serve the interests of the US and its "coalition of the willing" in the region, and would not help the cause of establishing a viable post-Cold War international order.    This could in no way be construed as support for Saddam's dictatorship, or an absence of concern for the lack of democracy in most of the countries in the Muslim Middle East.    Many of us firmly believed - and still do - that there were alternatives to war that could have held down Saddam and secured a regime change. In our opinion, the policy of deterrence and containment that had guided US foreign policy for over 50 years could have worked in relation to Saddam.    Indeed, such a policy had worked: the Iraqi dictator had not found it possible to stockpile WMD and rearm to the extent to become a threat to Iraq's neighbours, let alone the US, Britain and Australia.    Howard and Downer must now not turn a blind eye to the fact that most of the things the opponents of the war had said have been borne out by subsequent events.    Howard and Downer should take stock of what has transpired in Iraq, the region and beyond since the start of the war. Not only have thousands of innocent Iraqis lives been lost and the Iraqi state destroyed, but hundreds of young coalition soldiers have been killed. Yet the prospects for stability, prosperity and democracy in Iraq look as bleak as ever.    Saddam was the symptom of a set of conditions rooted deep in Iraq and the region. Howard and Downer will not be able to change those conditions by just getting rid of a symptom; they need to review their entire strategy so as to identify those conditions and then confront them correctly.    (Amin Saikal is professor of political science and director of the Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies at the Australian National University).
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