America Abroad

By Strobe Talbott

THE UNITED NATIONS IS ABOUT TO SUPERVISE THE DEstruction of Iraq's stockpile of nerve gas at an incinerator only 60 miles from Baghdad. It is a symbolic moment: Saddam Hussein may still be President of the Republic of Iraq, but like his arsenal of dangerous toys, his claim to being the absolute ruler of a sovereign country is going up in smoke.

The international community has put Saddam under a form of house arrest. His air force cannot fly to the south; his army cannot march in the north; he dares not venture for too long into the sunlight for fear of encountering a smart bomb or a dumb bullet with his name on it. Led by the U.S., the U.N. is using sanctions, inspections and the threat of military retribution to whittle down the scope of his authority to his palace and his bunker. The hope in Washington is that sooner or later, someone in Saddam's inner circle, or more likely a junta of someones, will tire of working for an impotent pariah; one fine morning Saddam will be gone, at least from office and better yet from this world.

The trouble with this strategy is that it may succeed. If the American dream of Saddam's removal comes true, the result could be a whole new humanitarian and political nightmare.

The danger is clearest in northern Iraq. The population there is made up mostly of Kurds, members of a non-Arab minority that the Iraqis have persecuted for decades. During the Gulf War, the Kurds eagerly responded to George Bush's call for a popular uprising. They saw a chance to break free of Baghdad once and for all.

But that was emphatically not what Bush had in mind. He has identified "instability" as the greatest threat to world peace in the post-cold war era. He sees the global contagion of secessionism as profoundly destabilizing. In three cases that came to a head last year -- Iraq, Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union -- Bush instinctively sided with the central governments, no matter how unpopular and repressive, against separatists.

The Kurdish question is particularly tricky. In addition to the nearly 5 million Kurds in Iraq, there are 12 million to 15 million in Turkey. A close American ally, Turkey is one of the few secular democracies in the Islamic world, making it an important positive influence in the Middle East as well as in Central and Southwest Asia. The mere prospect of independence for the Iraqi Kurds would inspire their Turkish brethren to step up the guerrilla war they have been waging against Ankara since the early 1980s.

That is largely why Bush let Saddam's army suppress the Iraqi Kurds and drive them into the mountains along the Turkish and Iranian borders, where many starved or froze to death. It was only because the Western media publicized those horrors that the Administration belatedly came to the Kurds' rescue. Along with other members of the anti-Saddam coalition, the U.S. has established an umbrella of armed force to safeguard the Iraqi Kurds above the 36th parallel. The area is now a de facto Kurdish state. It has an army and a democratically elected parliament, and it is developing its own laws and taxes. Out of deference to Washington and Ankara, Kurdistan still flies the Iraqi flag, but no officials from Baghdad are allowed in.

Ironically, the Kurds have one reason to pray for Saddam's survival as fervently as Bush prays for his demise. If Saddam falls, he will probably do so at the hands of his generals. By and large, they are no better than he is. Yet if they topple him, they will ask for the restoration of Iraq's sovereignty and territorial integrity. They will also insist on every dictatorship's favorite principle of international law: noninterference in internal affairs. That would mean a license to send Baghdad's bombers and troops north to crush the Kurds.

At recent meetings in the White House and State Department, several officials have argued, as one put it, "We may get another tyrant, only our ability to contain him will be more limited simply because he's not Saddam." Despite that concern, the Administration has decided to keep the focus on getting rid of Saddam; better not to discourage any possible plotters by imposing in advance conditions aimed at protecting the rights of minorities. The most U.S. officials are authorized to say in public is that it would be nice if a future Iraqi government were "willing to live in peace with its neighbors and its own people." That is supposed to be a "signal" to Saddam's successors to tread gently north of the 36th parallel.

But there is no place for subtlety, politesse and diplomatic code words in dealing with thugs such as those who are likely to replace Saddam. As in its vendettas against Castro, Gaddafi and Noriega, the U.S. has once again overpersonalized the problem in Iraq and oversimplified the solution. The issue is not just a dreadful man but a dreadful system.

In keeping the squeeze on Iraq, the U.S. should stop playing coy with potential coup leaders. It should say explicitly that sanctions and no-fly rules will stay in force until the powers that be in Baghdad, whoever they are, behave in a civilized fashion toward their subjects. Otherwise Saddam could end up having his revenge from beyond the grave on Kurds and coalition alike.