Word: saddamism
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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While the Arabs think the U.S. is scheming and manipulating events, Saddam is calling the shots in the current crisis. He created it and will decide its outcome. His strategy is visible. Saddam is determined to keep his weapons of mass destruction, using them to boost his prestige and as a threat and deterrent against all the neighbors who do not love him, starting with Iran. He wants to fend off the U.N. inspectors and get out from under the sanctions grinding down his economy...
...does he do it? He begins by refusing to allow the inspectors into his far-flung compounds and intelligence-service headquarters. Saddam is trying to persuade the Security Council that the inspections as well as the embargo must come to an end. Failing that, he can endure and survive an American bombardment, emerging to greet a world newly sympathetic to Iraqi suffering and outraged by American bullying. His defiance brings him admiration; his resistance rallies his people to his side. The U.N. inspectors will be gone, and the embargo will be shakier than ever. He probably figures that even...
...YORK: Squabbles over diplo-speak and "automaticity" are quickly diluting a U.S.-backed resolution to punish Iraq if Saddam breaks last week's deal with Kofi Annan...
...Despite the seeming clarity of an agreement that promises "unfettered" access to all suspected sites, permanent members Russia, China and France are insisting that the entire Security Council have a say in not only the kind of punishment Hussein would receive for violations, but in deciding whether or not Saddam is in violation at all. Conciliatory edits offered by Britain -- changing "severest consequences" to "very severe" and removing an explicit reference to a 1991 resolution that threatened force -- failed to convice the holdouts...
...hoped Annan's deal had laid the foundations for an ultimatum to Saddam. But in the hands of the Security Council, that "credible military threat" is quickly turning into a joke...