Iraqis must decide own future

Malcolm Rifkind, Guardian News Service, London

Saddam Hussein's capture is not the end, nor the beginning of the end, of the trauma of Iraq. But it is the end of the beginning, and its significance is difficult to exaggerate.

First and foremost is its psychological importance to the people of Iraq. However obvious it might have been to those with a logical frame of mind that Saddam's regime had been overthrown and was never to return, that was not how it has been seen by millions of Iraqis.

He had dominated their lives for so many years, his power seemed so pervasive and his punishments so severe that he was deemed by many to have almost supernatural qualities. They needed irrefutable proof of his death or capture to know that he could no longer pose a threat to their lives. Now that is what they have. Their future may still be uncertain. But now they know that he will not be part of it.

As delighted (and relieved) will be George Bush and Tony Blair. They know that politics is about symbols as well as about substance. Saddam's continuing freedom, together with that of Osama bin Laden, reflected on American competence, on the support the coalition was receiving from the people they had liberated, and on whether the Iraq war was truly irreversible. Now the job of nation building can proceed without any specters interfering in the feast.

The immediate question will be: What is to happen to Saddam? It is imperative that he be brought to trial and that this be done by the Iraqis and not by the Americans, nor by any international court. There is little doubt that Washington recognizes that it is to the Iraqi people that Saddam must answer for his crimes. That will not only be justice; it will also have an important cathartic effect on Iraq, helping to cleanse the country of the terrible effects of his long years of power.

Nuremberg was, rightly, different. The Nazis had done even greater crimes to the wider world than they had to their own people. That might have been Saddam's ambition, and, of course, the Kuwaitis and the Iranians had suffered badly from his aggression. But the real trauma was in Iraq itself, and it is the Iraqis who must punish him.

A more complex question is the effect that his capture will have on the insurgency in Iraq that has been plaguing the Americans since April. More Americans have died in attacks over the past few months than during the campaign itself. And most of those responsible for these attacks have not been fighting in order to return Saddam to power. The fact that Saddam was captured in an isolated village, without a body of protectors, suggests that he might already have lost any meaningful influence over his erstwhile supporters.

Most of these insurgents are Iraqis resentful of the American occupation of their country. Others are Arabs or Islamic extremists from other countries who have moved into Iraq, seeing it as an opportunity to wage jihad against the west. These elements will have no incentive to end their violence. Whether they are forced to will, to a large extent, depend on how the Americans respond to the new situation following Saddam's capture.

One possibility is that the U.S. will see it as a vindication of the war and of their policy up to now. They may wish to revert to a very gradual return of real power to Iraqis, while a new constitution is drafted, civil society is constructed, the economy rebuilt and political institutions introduced. Until a few weeks ago that was the U.S. intention, but the intensification of violence led to that strategy being abandoned and a promise that power would be transferred to an interim government by the middle of next year.

President Bush must resist any suggestion that with Saddam's arrest he can now relax, prolong the timetable and expect a new level of Iraqi agreement for an occupation that would last for years rather than months. If anything, the reverse is true. While Saddam was at large, many Iraqis, whatever their public statements, were relieved that the presence of the U.S. military guaranteed that the old regime could not fight its way back to power. Now that threat has finally disappeared, Iraqis will be less persuaded than ever that they need American tutelage in order to educate them how to govern themselves.

The Iraqis are a proud people but, unlike in Afghanistan, they are also well-educated and have massive oil reserves that give them the prospect of economic self-sufficiency. However delighted they might be to be relieved of Saddam's tyranny, they feel humiliated by foreign occupation, and they should not be expected to be any less anti-American than the rest of the Arab world.

If the Americans ignore these sensitivities then the insurgents, with Saddam out of the way, will seem even more like freedom fighters to ordinary Iraqis. If, however, the Americans respond generously and use these events to justify an even earlier departure of occupying forces, the dissidents will quickly lose any popular support.

It is not just the future of Iraq that is at stake. Bush's re- election next year depends on Americans feeling that they are not facing a new Vietnam. Saddam's capture will boost Bush's prestige, but that will be shortlived if the violence continues and, even more, if it escalates. Bush should use this new opportunity to transfer effective power in Iraq from the Pentagon and Donald Rumsfeld, and hand the political process over to Colin Powell and his colleagues. The imperatives are now political and diplomatic, and whatever the Pentagon's other strengths, nation building is not one of them.

For Tony Blair these events are also good news. We will hear, again and again, that the nightmare of the Iraqis would not be over if the war had not happened. That is irrefutable, though it will have to be pointed out to him, equally often, that this view would justify war against Zimbabwe, North Korea and Cuba as well.

The end result of the second Gulf war will not be a liberal, capitalist Iraq that is a beacon of democracy in the Middle East. Such unreservedly happy endings are not, sadly, the lot of man. New, tough, authoritarian Iraqis will emerge to take over the levers of power. If Iraq is lucky, it will end up like Egypt; if unlucky, it will be like Syria. One thing, however, remains clear. It will be the Iraqis, and not the Americans or the British, who will decide.

Sir Malcolm Rifkind was the British Conservative defense secretary from 1992-1995 and foreign secretary from 1995-1997.