Iraq Sword of the Arabs Brutal perhaps, but only as crazy as a desert fox, Saddam Hussein mounts a crude push for Middle East supremacy and worries the world

By Jill Smolowe

The Arabic word saddam means "one who confronts." From the start of the three-day Arab summit in Baghdad last week, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein lived up to his name. Playing shrewdly on the frustration of Arabs exasperated by the bloody stalemate with Israel, Saddam set the aggressive tone in his opening address: "We should state clearly that if Israel commits aggression and attacks, we will strike back with great force. If Israel uses weapons of total destruction against our nation, we will use whatever weapons of total destruction we have against it."

The fiery rhetoric of a madman? Or the calculated political message of an ambitious tyrant seeking to ensure his own coronation as master of the Arab universe? That is just what statesmen in the West and the Middle East are asking as Saddam accelerates his determined campaign for regional dominance. In recent months he has thrust himself into the world spotlight with a series of saber-rattling actions, statements and threats that have reinforced his reputation for ruthlessness and provoked disturbing questions about his ultimate designs. "He is playing on an old theme; call it constructive craziness," says Mark Heller of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies in Tel Aviv. "If you act like a loose cannon, people tend to treat you with kid gloves."

Certainly Saddam is not a man to trifle with or ignore. At home the hallmark of his rule is fear: fear of the secret police, of informers, of the midnight knock at the door that results in mysterious disappearances and often in executions. The penalty for openly speaking ill of him is death. According to Amnesty International, hangings occur on an average of ten to 20 times a month. Appeals for autonomy by rebellious Kurds have been answered with poison gas and forced relocation. Not even presumably loyal army officers are shielded from Saddam's wrath: many died in suspicious helicopter crashes during the gulf war.

Abroad, Saddam has embarked on a dangerous course to intimidate opponents and supporters alike. Last March an Iraq-bound shipment of devices, widely believed to be for use in triggering a nuclear explosion, was intercepted in London. The ensuing speculation about his militaristic intentions provoked Saddam to warn, "We will let our fire eat half of Israel if it tries to wage anything against Iraq." A week later British officials impounded another Iraqi shipment, this one containing what defense experts thought was the barrel of the world's largest cannon.

All this might not be so alarming were it not for Saddam's apparent determination to transform Iraq into a regional superpower with a nuclear capability. Baghdad's vast arsenal of sophisticated weaponry is at the disposal of a 1 million-strong battle-hardened military, by far the largest of any Arab state. Given Israel's formidable military strength, Saddam's buildup amounts to a Middle East version of mutual assured destruction, the same kind of nerve-racking standoff that governed East-West relations throughout the cold war.

But even Iraq's Arab neighbors are made nervous by Saddam's demonstrated . willingness to use his weapons. One year after assuming the presidency in 1979, Saddam sent his armies into Iran, anticipating a quick and easy grab of disputed territory. Before a cease-fire halted the fighting eight years later, Saddam had used his chemical weapons against Iran's soldiers and fired his missiles on Tehran and other cities. During the savage war, Saddam enunciated to a visiting Arab delegation his guiding philosophy toward the region by pounding a table with his shoe and shouting, "That's the only way to treat Arabs!"

The roots of Saddam's totalitarian impulse can be traced to the northern Iraqi town of Tikrit, where he was born in 1937 to an impoverished peasant family. Fatherless, Saddam spent much of his youth with his maternal uncle, Khairallah Talfah, an army officer who in 1941 supported a failed attempt to topple Iraq's British-controlled monarchy. Talfah's five-year imprisonment instilled in the young Saddam a profound bitterness that would give rise to a nationalistic fervor and an acute desire to rid not only Iraq but also the entire Arab world of foreign influence.

Saddam's first venture into subversive politics came in 1956 when, as a new member of the Baath Party, he participated in an abortive coup against King Faisal II. The task was completed two years later by military strongman Abdul Karim Kassem. When the Baathists fared no better under the new regime, Saddam was tapped by the party in 1959 to assassinate Kassem. That attempt also failed, but Saddam emerged a hero as stories circulated of how he had a companion dig a bullet from his leg with a penknife, then to Syria disguised as a Bedouin.

By 1968 the Baath Party was firmly entrenched, and Saddam embarked on a rising career that earned him the monicker "Butcher of Baghdad." He ordered up, presided over and even participated in executions of rivals, some of them once close friends. Two years ago, Saddam ordered the trial of his own son Uday, who had clubbed to death a presidential bodyguard. Eventually Saddam succumbed to appeals for clemency, and Uday was merely sent into brief exile.

For a man who aims to dominate the Arab world, the Iraqi leader is reclusive and aloof. He has not traveled outside the Arab world since 1985, and rarely grants interviews. Despite a feverish cult of personality, little is known about his habits or tastes beyond the image he cultivates as a patron of music and poetry. Those outside his tightly controlled inner circle have little sense of the humorless man who hides behind bombastic statements and paternalistic visits to the countryside.

Hence his every action becomes grist for analysis. Saddam's obsession with security, which includes periodic purges of the party and the military, may merely be prudent, though some analysts see hints of paranoia. Yet most are convinced that Saddam is cunningly sane. "He is not a lunatic," says a high- ranking Israeli intelligence official. "He is a megalomaniac, but he is rational." Concurs Philip Robins, head of Middle East programs at the London- based Royal Institute of International Affairs: "He is not driven by ideology or whim. He coldly calculates every move."

For that reason Saddam is not likely to do anything that would jeopardize his standing either in Iraq or in the Middle East. Many Western analysts believe Saddam would not be so foolish as to initiate a first strike against Israel, a move that would invite only his destruction. At the same time, they warn that he is capable of vicious retaliation and caution against attempts to isolate him, which might provoke his use of outlawed weapons.

The U.S. Administration and Middle East moderates, including Egypt's Hosni Mubarak and Jordan's King Hussein, feel that the best antidote to Saddam's potential barbarity is to keep him engaged in dialogue. In November 1988 the U.S. used quiet diplomacy to extract from Saddam a promise that he would not be first, in future, to use chemical weapons. Despite his confrontational tone in Baghdad last week, Saddam signed on to a watered-down communique that fell short of his call for oil sanctions against the U.S. That was only a minor victory for the region's moderates, who have much to fear from Saddam's breed of radicalism. But it provided some encouragement that as long as they can keep Saddam talking, there is hope of persuading him to pursue a more reasonable course.

With reporting by Dean Fischer/Baghdad, Jon D. Hull/Jerusalem and William Mader/London