Word: saddamism
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...some form of autonomy in northern Iraq, where the Kurds predominate. But details of the arrangement remained to be settled, and the deal could very well fall apart. Even if an armistice does hold for a time, no seasoned analyst expects it to bring lasting peace to the Kurds. "Saddam is buying time," says a high-ranking Turkish diplomat. "He will take his revenge when he can afford...
...Saddam, said a senior British diplomat, was "trying to twitch a muscle," and it made the allies nervous. "Just one shot by an Iraqi soldier could trigger a battle," worried another London official. At the same time, the presence of the armed men was dissuading the fearful Kurds from moving into the new sanctuaries. "Our problem is not tents," said Rajab, a Kurdish guerrilla commander. "Our problem is security...
Thus in addition to the indignities of his war loss and having his southern flank still largely under U.S. control, Saddam now finds northern Iraq occupied by foreign forces who freely order his troops around. Hopes of putting an end to such humiliations surely contributed to his decision to offer the Kurds an olive branch. Saddam was also motivated by a desire to bring calm to the country so as to encourage the lifting of U.N. economic sanctions against Iraq. "The embargo is killing him. He can't begin reconstruction," says a senior Western diplomat in Ankara...
...their part, the Kurdish delegates, who represented the four major Kurdish organizations, figured they were negotiating from strength. Not only has Saddam been weakened by his defeat in the gulf war, but, explains a European spokesman for the Kurdish Front in Paris, "this is the very first time that the plight of the Kurds has been internationalized." The minority leaders are also desperate to bring their people home, down from their squalid border shelters where they are perishing by the hundreds every day. If a shaky truce is the price, so be it. The Kurdish chieftains feel especially responsible...
What's more, the Kurds, like Saddam, are in the market for time, a breathing space in which to rebuild their guerrilla forces so that when the next fight with Baghdad comes, they will be ready. Concerns that the delegation was hopelessly naive were somewhat mitigated by the participation of Nashirwan Barzani, who represented his uncle Massoud Barzani, the Kurdish guerrilla chief whose Democratic Party of Kurdistan is more militant than Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan...