Good bye Saddam

Hello everybody its good to be back after the year end break, It looks like too many quite important things have happened around the globe in this so called „“year end break, funny that they call the year end break isn’t it.

Most important it all comes back to Iraq, our good old friendly neighborhood Saddam as expected has been executed and that had no ifs but only when and I think the Americans delivered a master blow by their timing.

Americans showed the true power of death, an out of power saddam executed brings makes more gains on the ground than strutting around in courts shouting obscenities in the name of religion.

One interesting fact that most missed is if ever America had a “true” friend in the Arab world it was Saddam, He was a friend when he was a Sunni Rabble rouser, a good friend during tumultuous times when he was in power and a better one when he did not dance as per their wishes, even better when he lost power during the invasion, friendship value rose when he was captured in his small rat hole, friendship was near peak when he was strutting around the kangaroo courts before international cameras and peaked when he was executed and it reached its zenith when post execution videos were aired.

I personally don’t think any other nation in the world is as lucky as America to have such good friends who in their life provide them with such huge benefits and in their deaths add a multiplier effect on Benefits.

If you are surprised by the above paragraphs read on as to why I think that Saddam was and is Americas best friend.

A brief history of the ME does no harm. The Iranians or the Persians as they like to call themselves have only themselves to blame, once the best Friends of America during the Shah times they had the best of both worlds, sitting on a pile of Natural gas and being friendly ensured that wealth and modernity were their constant partners, American and European education was then affordable and doors were always open to all of them, If any of you Indians reading this could recall at those times there were more than a quarter million Iranian students studying in Indian universities mostly technical streams and Medical and life sciences streams (Of course not the deobandi syllabus). Also one of Karnataka’s busiest roads as also the road built on the toughest terrain that connects Bangalore and Mangalore was built with their money and expertise.
When you see the current Iran I don’t think anybody would even believe what I wrote, but its sadly true, The Persian shias had a chance to get out of the Islamic Ghetto, alas they did not. No don’t blame the Sunnis or the decadent west for that.

It is in this background that Saddam has to be seen, his emergence and rise to power and his fall all are intricately connected to this vast Persian legacy.

When Iranian stupidity drove America out of Iran, it was not the end of the world for them, there was always a back door and Saddam was there to open it for them. The fluid situation at that time forced America to look for a partner and found Saddam, smarting from the loss inflicted by the Shias what better than befriend a rabid Sunni ruling over a Shia majority land neighboring the Iranians, It was definitely a friendship worth maintaining and Americans are never known to be dumb.

At this point you should be aware of one important thing, that is the bond between Saddam and the yanks may have been at that time very opportunistic devoid of any commonality between ideas and ideals, but for us the non-Muslims it made the world a much safer place, to appreciate this point you will again have to drop your self back into those tumultuous times, the cold war was beginning to really get cold, battle lines hardening across the world, the saying was you are either with them or us, of course Indian Tom foolery with the NAM joke continued but in fact it had no other use than being a talking shop not even worth its nuisance value (In fact Saddam was a very important member of NAM along with Castro,Gaddafi,Saudi Princes,Ershad,Zia,Ortega and Nehru) quite an August company.

Getting back to the times then, you had the Persians and the artificial construct called Iraq Sitting on massive loads of oil and gas along with a population who were mostly unemployable other than as suicide bombers and extremely fanatic and fatalistic, add massive doses of dollars to this bunch then the world would have to contend with three Saudi Arabias, Islamic violence around the world and especially in India is the effect of one Saudi Arabia, imagine the effect it would have had if we had three such rogue states.
In fact we Hindus have to be thankful to Saddam, what ever he was he kept the Shias occupied and weak so that their hands were a bit tied considering that there are over 100 million Shias in India.

Saddam was there when we all needed him, he rode to power on a completely non religious formula and stuck it out there by hook or crook in fact you can accuse him of anything but I will always take a sympathetic view because all he did had a very indirect effect on us.

The real blessing in disguise for all of us both the east and west was his brilliant opening up of the 8 year war with Iran, in fact the best part of this war was that almost all the petro-dollars earned were burnt out by shooting at each other rather than at others, strategically speaking two mad dogs are better off fighting between themselves rather than spreading the disease all around, get the point?? 

On one hand he held the Shia power at bay and on the other he acted as the counter weight to other rabid Sunnis in the region, in fact there are a number of cases where the Americans used saddam to achieve their aims over the Saudis and other smaller fancy Islamic states like Kuwait and Jordan, Is it then a surprise if you know why the Jordanians are such friends of the USA and the Kuwaitis love the Americans and the Saudis will do Americas bidding even if it goes against their religion, in fact one powerful saddam had all the silly princes of the gulf rushing to embrace America. Do you personally think that it is bad for the world?.

Thanks to America, they ensured that for all the petro dollars these states earned, they promptly spent it on arms by keeping small local wars raging, in fact it was a good idea to keep the otherwise unemployable populations employed and indirectly helping countries like India, which otherwise usually cant provide enough security to its majority community.

You can demonize Saddam by saying that he tried to build nukes at Bush era, but every dictator has a fancy so did Saddam, and he did not even put up any resistance when the Israelis bombed it, he knew it was futile because the bombs had America written all over it.

Bush –I bombed the daylights out of Saddam for invading Kuwait and putting the delicate oil market to risk, but he had no intention of ending Saddams era, he did not care for Kuwait or its good for nothing princes either, all he cared was that the oil from Kuwait and Iraq should flow, but Saddams real tactical error was when he tried selling oil by denominating it in non US currency, and that was the end of his positive friendship and what Bush II did is very recent memory, you might be a friend of America, make small mistakes its all part of friendship you know, but you never challenge their superiority and that fatal mistake Saddam did and paid the price.

If you believe that the invasion was the last straw in the mutually beneficial relationship between the Yanks and Saddam then you are again wrong, in fact the mutually benefit in the relationship was replaced by a you lose I win factor in favor of America, when America was hailed for bringing down a brutal dictator.

Their first ace was when they captured Saddam alive in his rat hole, the humiliation was there to see, Americans got what they wanted, to showcase to the world of “their bastards” i.e. all dictators supported by America what misbehavior will do to them, the message had its effects, Gaddafi was the first and not the last to become one of their “bastards”,
All the silly princes of the gulf states were put on notice, cooperate and behave or else..

On a public front a living saddam was a good PR exercise than a dead saddam,showcase him on TV throw him in front of a kangaroo court and this makes great positive viewing about Iraq amidst all bad news emanating from there, but the one year court drama is a drag, its no big brother so people tend to forget and peoples collective short memory had its effect as did increasing American losses and growing signs of Iranian muscle flexing and brash non-cooperation, you need a Saddam again but this time for execution via a court decree and why not.

In one case it’s perfectly legal to execute him under Iraqi law and secondly you get the execution done by Iraqis themselves, and the timing could not be perfect, with increasing Sunni violence a strong message had to be sent out to them and what better than to execute the Iraqi Sunni flag bearer on the official “Sunni forgiveness day”.

While the Sunnis have the nothing to lose effect, they learnt the hard lesson America will hit back and that has taken a toll on their morale whether you accept it or not. The Shias may have had a good laugh, but they know very well, they can be the next and most worried will be the mullahs next door.

Most of other Islamic dictators who are mostly “our bastards” from Americas view got the message, if you have seen the way our friendly neighborhood mush has changed, then thank Saddam for that.

The real master stroke was the actual videos, it is quite foolish to believe that an amateur prison guard had a hidden camera to picturise the execution and post that his body was allowed to be photographed by a few other guards and the video allowed to hit the internet, it was well planned and well executed and the videos were meant to hit the stands and they hit well and had the desired effect.

A dying Saddam and a dead saddam ensured to complete satisfaction in one stroke the complete illegitimacy of the Shia dominated government deepening the sectarian divide, the actual intended consequence, a deeply divided Iraq is any day a better proposition to this world, Iraq is reaching the end to its meaningless existence, and the earlier it reaches that end the better.

The world needs to give the Kurds, a 3000 year old clan, a chance to form a country which will have a bigger ripple effect than Saddam, because it will disturb the current equation in Turkey, Saudi Arabia and notably in Iran and this will be very interesting to watch.
To their credit they have shown how it is possible to establish stable governance in the midst of chaos, you only have to visit Kirkut to view that.

Coming back to Saddam, Saddam might have died but his spirit will flicker about for a couple of months more and then as usual will be forgotten and buried in the vast lands of Arabia. In the meantime America is on the look out for new true friends.

Your comments are welcome