Review Saddam Hussein The Politics Of Revenge

Aburish, Said, Saddam Hussein The Politics Of Revenge, Bloomsbury, 2000

 

Said Aburish’s Saddam Hussein The Politics Of Revenge is full of ups and downs. He makes some astute observations about Saddam’s assumption of power and the U.S. and U.K. policy of regime change in the 1990s. On the other hand, he was a Baathist sympathizer up to the 1980s having worked for the Iraqi government. Second, Aburish’s writing is full of Saddam gossip about his excesses. Most importantly almost all major issues are explained via Western conspiracies which robs Iraqis of any agency and responsibility throughout history. The problems with his writing end up undermining any good points the author might have made.

 

Aburish’s main thesis is that Saddam’s rise to power mirrored that of Joseph Stalin. Both came from poor beginnings and had little education and opportunities when they were young. Despite that they worked their way up the political parties they joined, latched onto the emerging leaders in this case General Hassan al-Bakr before taking full dictatorial power. Stalin was also a favorite reading topic for Saddam. During the Gulf War President Bush compared Saddam to Hitler but Stalin might be a better analogy.

 

More interesting the author notes a change in approach between Saddam’s early years and later ones. When Saddam was second in command behind President Bakr he presented himself as a populist. He was responsible for nationalizing the oil industry which greatly increased the money flowing to Baghdad. The government then launched massive development projects which had huge impacts upon the population such as largely eliminating illiteracy, opening education and opportunities to women, and greatly expanding services. The inspiration seemed to be that if the government raised the standard of living for the public it would accept the dictatorship. Saddam was also known for walking the streets and randomly talking to people. In 1982 there was an attempt upon Saddam’s life after which Saddam increasingly became a recluse. He surrounded himself with more and more security services, started moving from palace to palace, used impersonators and food tasters all meant to protect his personal safety. In both periods he concentrated power, carried out purges of the Baath Party and leadership, and killed many, but there was definitely a change in priorities and approach after 1982.

 

The end of Saddam Hussein The Politics Of Revenge about the post-Gulf War years is poignant. He condemned America and England’s regime change policy for using U.N. sanctions to punish the Iraqi people instead of Saddam and his family. Rather than weakening the regime it actually strengthened the dictator’s hold over the country. Washington and London never gave the Iraqi people a reason to rise up against Saddam and didn’t want a popular revolt either because it couldn’t control the outcome. Instead it backed various ineffective and fractured opposition groups. Aburish said many of them were simply seeking to enrich themselves while those with standing such as the Kurds were divided between two rival families while the Shiites were backed by Iran which meant the West would have nothing to do with them. The result was the Iraqi people were suffering and being impoverished with no relief possible because the U.S. and U.K. were committed to their incompetent policy.

 

The issues with the book however are far more striking. First off, the author was a Baathist sympathizers. He said that when several party members were put on trial for attempting to assassinate General Qasim in 1959 their testimony in court brought him to tears. He also worked for the Baath government as a consultant helping it to obtain weapons and attempting to improve Iraq’s image with the United States at the start of the Iran-Iraq War. It wasn’t until the mid-1980s that Aburish finally broke with Saddam believing that his dictatorship had become too brutal.

 

Second, the book is full of Saddam gossip. Did he kill this man? Did he get into this fight? Was he involved in this plot? There is also little depth to any of the history. In 1970 for instance, Saddam forged a deal with the Kurds promising them autonomy if they ended their revolt which they did. Aburish’s only explanation is Saddam said fighting the Kurds would make everyone lose. There’s nothing about the weakness of the Baath at that time and how they sought to appease their opponents until they were strong enough to do without them.

 

The biggest problem however is that almost every major event is explained through Western conspiracies. The book claims all the tribal, Kurdish and Assyrians revolts during the British Mandate and Monarchy were created by the British to keep Iraqi weak. The fact that the UK was the government under the Mandate and had advisors throughout the government under the Monarchy meant that London could undermine Baghdad internally if it wanted to is ignored. The author writes that King Ghazi was killed by London and its allies in the political class. His proof was that there was no damage to his car which he died in when pictures show dents to the front of the vehicle. In the 1970s Aburish said that one reason why the U.S. turned a blind eye to Iraq’s weapons procurement was that it wanted to counter Iran’s dominance of the Persian Gulf when backing the Shah to be a regional power was public policy of the Nixon and Ford administrations. The 1990 invasion of Kuwait is explained by secret CIA deals to push Kuwait to undermine Iraq and U.S. Ambassador April Glaspie greenlighting the attack. The result is that Saddam and previous Iraqi leaders are absolved of responsibility for these incidents because they are constantly manipulated by the West. This is a common belief in the Middle East and means that Arabs have no power or agency over their own affairs. Saddam was a strong adherent to this view explaining major events through plots. This is the main reason to avoid reading Saddam Hussein.

 

Whatever interesting things Said Aburish might make about Saddam Hussein are instantly undermined by his telling of history. By relying upon conspiracy theories to explain much of Iraq’s past makes the book worthless to read. According to the author Saddam wasn’t responsible for the Gulf War but was pushed into it by Washington. It just feeds into common stereotypes that Arabs are helpless pawns in the hands of the West. There are many other books that provide a much better story about Saddam than this one.

 

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