Word: saddamism
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...nightmare that you're back in school taking the big exam? Bill Clinton is having one of those right now: he's trying to pass a test in which every possible answer seems wrong. But the President's bad dream is all too real. And it has a name: Saddam Hussein. When the Iraqi nemesis bared his fangs at Clinton and the U.N. last week--expelling American weapons inspectors from Iraq, threatening to shoot down U-2 surveillance planes and daring the world to do something about it--he precipitated the gravest international crisis of Clinton's presidency. American...
With the exception of Britain, America's key Gulf War allies--notably France, Russia and Egypt--all oppose the use of force this time around. They urge Clinton to pursue an ill-defined diplomatic solution, ratcheting up the pressure until Saddam blinks. Clinton would love to prevail in that fashion, but he's not holding his breath. He knows that Saddam responds to diplomatic wrist slaps the way a tank does to toy guns. The watered-down resolution passed last week by the U.N. Security Council, which hit Iraq with a ban on official travel, must be laughable...
...action, he may have to go it almost alone, with just a few allies--Britain, Kuwait, perhaps Saudi Arabia and Turkey--by his side. Aides say the President is comfortable with the idea. "He has understood for some time that we have to do the hard work of boxing [Saddam] in," says spokesman Mike McCurry. "He is clearly prepared...
...radar-tracking sights. "If he lights up a plane with radar or takes a shot, that'll open the door to attack," a senior Pentagon official told Time. "We're just waiting for him to do something stupid so we can whack him." But as long as Saddam avoids that rash move, the President's options will remain less than perfect...
Even massive air strikes might not achieve Clinton's objective. Biological weapons are so small and concealable that no air campaign could be sure of getting rid of them, even if the Pentagon knew what Saddam was hiding and where. (It does not.) Bombing Saddam into submission is no sure thing either, because the Iraqi President, who builds palaces while his people starve, seems willing to let his country hunker down and absorb almost limitless punishment. Such an attack would involve bomber squadrons as well as missiles, endangering American lives. It would also convulse the Arab world, which fears...