Saddam Hussein's Totalitarian Regime: Rise, Rule, and Fall

Introduction: Saddam Hussein and the Totalitarian State

Saddam Hussein's reign as one of the most powerful leaders in the Middle Eastern region has been, over the years, riddled with both criticism and support. These reactions were expressed by different nations over the years, just as Saddam and his regime made allies and enemies of those same nations. Decades after he rose to power as the leader of Iraq, Saddam transformed from a nationalistic leader into a dictator allegedly guilty of numerous human rights violations and war crimes, both within and outside Iraq.

Perception of Saddam as a hostile leader was reflected in his "containment" policy for Iraq — effectively closing the country to outside exposure and preventing the wider world from receiving news about the condition of Iraqis under his leadership. That perceived hostility intensified when former U.S. President George W. Bush declared an offensive war against Iraq, claiming that Iraq had supported the 9/11 terrorists by providing them with weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) (O'Reilly, 2004: 60). The September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center, combined with Saddam's continued hostility, made it easier for the Bush administration to justify its offensive against both Saddam and the Taliban government in Afghanistan.

Six years after the U.S. offensive attack against Iraq, Saddam was prosecuted and sentenced to death, the Taliban government was dissolved, and Osama bin Laden's terrorist network was forced to disband and go into hiding. However, despite these developments, the fight against terrorism appeared far from over. Even though Saddam was prosecuted and executed, the terror he brought to Iraqis and the damage his regime inflicted on Iraq's social, political, and economic structures continued to haunt the international community as new reports and discoveries were made public. Through records and documents recovered from the regime's former government offices that had not been destroyed, investigators and the international media pieced together this evidence to build a comprehensive picture of what had happened to the nation under Saddam's dictatorship (Tompkins et al., 2008).

This paper discusses in detail Saddam's ascent as a dictator and the durability of his totalitarian regime in Iraq, which lasted for decades until 2003. The discussion takes the form of a historical analysis addressing three critical questions related to Saddam's prolonged rule. First, what led to the escalation of Saddam's ambitions from top national leader to totalitarian dictator? Second, why was his reign as dictator prolonged despite the active role that Western countries such as the United States and Britain played in Middle Eastern politics during his rule? Third, were the allegations against Saddam — including human rights violations and war crimes committed against civil society — proven to be true, and if so, how was that conclusion reached?

These questions form the core of the discussion in this paper. The central argument is that Saddam's totalitarian regime escalated and endured because it was initially tolerated and financially and politically supported, primarily by the United States. Saddam became a U.S. ally when his actions served American interests, and that support waned when his decisions became too risky for the U.S. and damaging to its relations with other Middle Eastern nations.

Escalation of Saddam's Totalitarian Regime

Two important events in Iraq's history served as the foundation for the country's role in the international political arena under Saddam's totalitarian regime: the Iran-Iraq War and the Gulf War. Both were pivotal in establishing Saddam's regime as a political force in the Middle Eastern region — to the benefit of the Arab nations Saddam championed, and to the detriment of the victims of both wars.

The Iran-Iraq War solidified Saddam's place in international politics as an influential leader in the Middle East, largely because he was able to secure the financial and political support of powerful Western nations, including the United States. In that conflict, Saddam was aligned with world leaders' objective of preventing Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini from spreading radical Islamism throughout the region. Because Saddam and those world leaders agreed that radical Islamism had to be contained, they supported his attack against Iran. A report by Dickey and Thomas (2002) on U.S. involvement in the Iran-Iraq War disclosed that the United States, aware that Iraq was gradually losing the war against Iran, provided Iraq with intelligence information through "satellite photos showing Iranian deployments." The report also indicated that the U.S. supplied Iraq with military equipment and materials including "computerized databases for Saddam's Interior Ministry, helicopters, television cameras for video surveillance applications, chemical analysis equipment for the Iraq Atomic Energy Commission (IAEC), and numerous shipments of bacteria, fungi, and protozoa," also destined for the IAEC.

This pattern of U.S. support for Iraq extended further back than the Iran-Iraq War. Another report linking the U.S. with Saddam's rise argued that American funding for his ascent to Iraqi leadership dated as far back as 1963, when Saddam successfully helped overthrow Abdul Karim Kassim's government (Sanders, 2002). That coup paved the way for the Ba'ath Party's dominance in Iraqi politics and ultimately for Saddam's emergence as the country's future dictator.

Throughout his presidency, Saddam pursued the goal of uniting all Arab nations under his leadership in the Middle East — a vision he believed would eventually position him as the leader of a new Arab world order. The Iran-Iraq War was only the beginning of his plans to extend his influence across the region, made possible through financial, military, and political backing from the United States. Later in his rule, however, Saddam sought to extend his power over Kuwait, which he viewed as a threat because of its firm opposition to his proposed increase in oil prices — a significant matter given that both Iraq and Kuwait ranked among the region's largest oil suppliers.

Primarily in response to Kuwait's refusal to support his proposed price hike, Saddam launched an offensive attack against the country — a decision widely regarded as unwise both tactically and politically, given the economic damage Iraq had already sustained from the Iran-Iraq War. The U.S., Iraq's former "ally," assumed the opposite stance when Saddam attacked Kuwait. American support was withdrawn not only because Saddam was jeopardizing U.S. diplomatic relations with Kuwait and other Middle Eastern nations, but also because the attack raised international security concerns: intelligence reports alleged that a "custom sting operation snared several Iraqi agents who were trying to buy electronic equipment used to make triggers for nuclear bombs" (Dickey and Thomas, 2002).

With its international security and diplomatic interests now at stake, the U.S. switched sides and supported Kuwait against Iraq — a reversal that produced the historic Gulf War, initiated by then-President George H.W. Bush, which critically damaged the relationship between the two countries. That conflict also set a precedent for George W. Bush's later decision to launch a "shock and awe" offensive against Iraq after it was alleged that Saddam had assisted Al Qaeda in the September 11 attacks by supplying them with weapons of mass destruction (O'Reilly, 2004: 60).

Conclusion: Power, Complicity, and Civil Society

Witness accounts and interviews, as well as retrieved or salvaged documents from Saddam's government offices, make up a substantial part of new discoveries about the terror within Iraq under his totalitarian regime. Inasmuch as Saddam and his government were responsible for the atrocities committed against civil society, his case also provides a compelling lens through which the international community must examine the "goodness" and "deviltry" of the actions of world leaders.

Saddam's case brings into sharp relief how a leader may be supported and ultimately destroyed by the same political forces — forces that deemed his actions acceptable so long as they served their own interests, and that moved to end his reign when those actions became a liability. The cost of this calculation was borne, ultimately, by Iraqi civil society: by the individuals tortured in Abu Ghraib, by families who never learned the fate of loved ones, and by a nation whose social, political, and economic structures were left in ruins. The history of Saddam Hussein's totalitarian regime is thus not only a story of one man's ambition, but of the international political complicity that allowed it to endure.

References

Butt, G. (January 2001). "Saddam Hussein profile." BBC News World Edition.

Dickey, C. and E. Thomas. (September 2002). "How the U.S. helped create Saddam Hussein." Global Policy Forum.

O'Reilly, B. (2004). "Document connects Saddam Hussein to 9/11 terrorists." Fort Worth Business Press.

Paz, M. and J. Aviles. (2009). "Demonizing the tyrant: Saddam Hussein's image in Spanish news programs during the Second Persian Gulf War." International Journal of Contemporary Iraqi Studies, Vol. 3, No. 1.

"Saddam Hussein: crimes and human rights abuses." (November 2002). A report on the human cost of Saddam's policies by the Foreign & Commonwealth Office. London.

Sanders, R. (October 2002). "Regime change: how the CIA put Saddam's party in power." Hartford Web Publishing.

Tompkins, A. (2008). "Gathering evidence against the regime of Saddam Hussein." Litigation, Vol. 34, Issue 3.

Interview with [Student]. Conducted September 2009.