Quote:
Originally posted by Dragonlich
Okay...
1) you assume that if Saddam had given in, he'd lose face, and his population would rebel. To me, this is highly unlikely. They tried that before, and it was made clear to them that the price for rebellion was too high; One need only look at the experience of the recent war to see that. As Saddam controls the media, he can tell his people anything he wants. In fact, he's been telling them that they *won* the '91 gulf war. They may not have believed it, but that's an indication of how his regime works: deny everything that might hurt you. Thus, giving in to UN demands might not have led to a revolt after all, because his people simply wouldn't hear about it. Furthermore, any revolt would simply be stopped dead in it's tracks by Saddam's secret policy. He is a survivor, and it is not unlikely he would have survived this episode too, as long as the US hadn't attacked anyway.
2) Had Saddam given up his WMD evidence, the US would not have been able to attack, period. How could they have, when the main reason for that attack was gone? How would they have maintained that Saddam wasn't cooperating, if it was clear that he in fact *was* cooperating? Even the US would not have been able to dispute that. Regime change would not have been an option.
3) Had Saddam given up power before the war, he would have survived, and would have been a wealthy man, capable of plotting his comeback. As it is, he has opened himself up to danger, given up his wealth, and taken a huge risk. Given that the guy is pretty paranoid, I would suggest he's unlikely to take such a risk unless he absolutely has to.
4) Would Saddam assume that Muslim opposition to the US attack would somehow keep him in power? That would have been a risk worth taking... However, evidence from previous conflicts must have made him realize that the Muslim world in general wasn't going to support him. How desperate do you have to be, if your only chance of success is a sudden popular revolt all over the Muslim world? The odds of this ploy succeeding are extremely small, and even a man like Saddam must have known that.
5) You assume that Saddam was after wealth, not power. Yet it is commonly understood that he models himself after Stalin, and wanted to become the guy that rules the entire middle-east. In short, his history shows that it is power he is after, not wealth per se. I will acknowledge that his actions might have made him a legend (if he had managed to pull off his stated plan of killing enough Yanks to win the war), but again, the risks are too great. Also, given his own record of manipulating popular opinion, he must have know how easily the Muslim population changes their minds. His history of brutal repression would come out eventually, and he would be seen as a monster, not a hero.
er... gotta go now. job interview is more important. 
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1) I'm not assuming anything, I'm proposing an alternative viewpoint. Regardless, I'm not even stating that Saddam would have faced a rebellion but merely that he only needed to *believe* he faced a rebellion or recognize that his regime was fading. And you misquoted me, I wasn't addressing U.N. demands--according to the people invovled Saddam was complying with those. The U.N. is taken seriously around the globe--our country has the problem with it. I was addressing U.S. demands which were altered and increasingly demeaning as time progressed.
2) You are practicing historical revisionism with this point. The initial claim wasn't WMDs; that claim evolved over time. By the time the U.S. public overwhelmingly supported the war it was due to a myriad of reasons put forth by the administration--only one of which was WMDs. Besides, the U.N. and the inspectors were, in fact, stating exactly what you claim the U.S. couldn't gainsay--that Iraq was complying with the inspections and that, give more time, would be able to validate the claim that Iraq was disarmed. Rather than wait, the administration charged the threat was to high to our population to wait any longer and changed the timeline.
3) AFAIK, Saddam isn't dead. By all accounts, there isn't any evidence that he isn't a wealthy man and nothing apparent to prevent him from plotting a comeback if that is his intention.
4) Obviously Saddam wasn't planning that Muslim opposition was going to save his regime--and I never claimed that he thought that. I claimed that Muslim opposition to U.S. interests has been galvanized by the current events which certainly fits his long-term goals--regardless of him staying in power or not.
5) Once again, I'm not assuming Saddam was after wealth rather than power. I pointed out that after assessing his position Saddam may have very well believed his regime was about to end and opted out with as much wealth and face as he could muster. Besides that, I dispute your claim that the Muslim population changes its opinion rapidly and, frankly, it sounds racist. Your country's news coverage of Muslim opinion may have fluctuated and, more likely, your interest in their opinions waxed and waned--but I doubt the accuracy of stating that one month Muslims were pro-US and then anti-US the next. Finally, the only record you have of Saddam's geopolitical models and how he dealt with public opinion are limited to external, non-definative sources.
This has been an interesting discourse but you seem to have fallen prey to my country's propaganda claiming that Saddam was a buffoon. This is a tragic side-effect to the mechanisms used to galvanize public support of our administration's policies by denigrating and dehumanizing the opposition. Worse, if the administration actually believes the social constructions they have built then this would account for their inability to implement effective long-term policies (answering the earlier question of *how* our policy makers could have possibly known the ramifications of their actions years ago).