The Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein has outlived another American administration. A new administration, headed by George Bush the younger, is coming in, bringing with it many old, familiar faces from 10 years ago. Down Memory Lane in Kuwait at the end of February, George Bush the father sat beside the Emir, Sheikh Jaber Al Sabbah, enjoying lunch with friends such as Margaret Thatcher, John Major, Carlos Menem and a bunch of other former world leaders who were Kuwait’s allies in 1991, when they believed, or at least gave the impression they believed, they had defeated Saddam Hussein.

A decade on, only Saddam remains at the cutting edge of international politics, turning a deaf ear to American and British aircraft fighters screaming over Baghdad. The Iraqi leader laughed off an invitation by former president Bush to ?come down and see for himself?, made as Bush addressed cheering Kuwaitis while their military, joined by American and British tanks, held manoeuvres just a few yards away from the border with Iraq. ?No thanks,? Saddam responded. You are yesterday’s man, I will talk to your son.?

At present, Saddam earns about $1 billion annually from the smuggling of oil

Meanwhile President Bush the son, in association with Britain, came up with the concept of ?smart’ sanctions in an attempt to ?officially’ alleviate the suffering of the Iraqi people. ?Smart’ sanctions ? the expression leaves the sound of hollow laughter in ears already deafened by past boasting of ?smart’ bombs, the very devices that, by the Pentagon’s own admission, missed their target one out of four times. And that unnerving word ?smart’ ? doesn’t its use imply we have just had 10 years of ?stupid’ sanctions?

Former British prime minister Thatcher, the icing on the cake of Kuwait’s double celebration of both its national day ? 40 years of independence from British rule ? and the 10th anniversary of its liberation from Saddam’s occupation, stormed the British Embassy garden party after the Emir’s lunch. It could have been the effect of the champagne, or the sun, or a cocktail of the two, that resulted in her issuing a diatribe to the effect that, had she been in power at the conclusion of the Gulf war, she would not have permitted George Bush, the father, to go wobbly and take his eyes off the target. She would have marched the troops right on to Baghdad to capture Saddam, she said.

After planting a tree in the embassy garden, former prime minister John Major ? another leader Saddam watched come and go ? quickly revoked Mrs. Thatcher’s fatwa, saying the coalition had no legal mandate to occupy Iraq. The UN only authorised the liberation of Kuwait, not the ousting of Saddam, Major asserted.

Equally, there is no mandate to impose the no-fly zone to the south, a French journalist was quick to point out to a British diplomat, who shrugged, poured more champagne into his glass and talked about the weather.

It is the no-fly zone that gave the new Bush administration an excuse to, noisily, declare a new policy it hoped would scare Saddam off. American aircraft hit Iraqi radar installations on the outskirts of Baghdad ? which is outside the no-fly-zone, just one week before a grand tour of America’s Middle Eastern allied nations by Secretary of State Colin Powell ? another one who failed to unseat Saddam in his previous military role as the boss of the biggest army in the world, a coalition of 28 nations, when it waged war against Saddam. Now incarnated as the world’s top diplomat, Mr Powell is trying smarter ways of getting rid of the old foe.

Loud whispers from the corridors of power in Washington suggest, to the annoyance of Mr Powell, that the old and ailing Vice President Dick Cheney, who was defence secretary in the administration of Bush the father, is hoping to iron out unfinished business from 1991. He was behind the February air raids, although British Prime Minister Tony Blair wanted to take the credit for devising them.

There is no sign, as yet, of what the Anglo-US plan might be

Mr Powell heard a very different tune when he listened to wiser voices as he tried to peddle his ?smart’ sanctions plan in Cairo, Amman and Riyadh.

With the bombing of radar sites near Baghdad and the Pentagon’s admission that their ?smart’ satellite-guided weapons missed 17 of their 25 targets, Saddam’s credibility reached an all-time high on Arab streets.

It could be, some argue, that the American and ? token ? British bombing on 16 February was the beginning of something new, bigger and better. However, America’s friends in the region, who are also becoming increasingly embarrassed by the way Saddam continually spits the US in the eye, see no sign, as yet, of what the Anglo-American plan might be.

In Jordan, where he held talks with King Abdullah, and in Syria, speaking to President Bashar Assad, Mr Powell made clear that solving the Israeli-Palestinian issue was not an American priority. The crisis that threatens to wreck the stability of the entire region appears to have been put to one side. Dealing with Saddam and saving the Iraqi people from both his dictatorship and the crippling effects of economic sanctions was clearly top of the US secretary of state’s list of things to do.

There was anticipation in the air as British and other western reporters gathered in the garden of the massive, newly constructed American Embassy complex, waiting for the arrival of Mr Powell, but it was misplaced.

He came, made some tribute to the fallen heroes, applauded George Bush the father’s sentimental speech, laid a wreath at the war memorial for Americans who fell during the liberation of Kuwait, and went without saying another word to the waiting press. Could his plan to overthrow Saddam be so tight that no one could ?read his lips’? Or could it be that he had no plan at all?

In its smart way, America is now working for the relaxation of sanctions on Iraq. Sanctions could be lifted on up to 1,600 contracts for the sale of civilian goods to Iraq. This could even be extended to some items that could be used for military purposes.

After Kuwait, Mr Powell headed to Damascus where he attempted to persuade President Bashar Assad to turn off a pipeline through which Saddam has been smuggling oil.

At present, Saddam earns about $1 billion annually from the smuggling of oil, through pipes via Syria, trucks via Turkey and Jordan, and by barges huddled in Iranian territorial waters, away from the watchful eye of the US navy.

The Syrians will not help America for love

Cynics in the Middle East anticipated that the young Assad would be a chip of the old block. ?Of course we will turn off,? he would say to the American guest, they suggested, then turn the pipes on again once Mr Powell’s plane was out of Syrian air space.

Nevertheless, Mr Powell still had a go, since the success of his ?smart’ sanctions depends so heavily on persuading Iraq’s neighbours, Syria, Turkey, Iran and Jordan ? the Kuwaitis need no persuasion ? to tighten their border crossings with Iraq. Now the UN inspectors are out, he needs their help to stop the smuggling of all materials that help Saddam build his weapons of mass destruction.

Saddam’s earnings from smuggled oil sales are not channelled through a UN escrow account. Consequently, none of it goes to compensate victims of the Gulf war, and none can be used to buy food and medicine for his people. Saddam can spend all the earnings from smuggled oil on his programmes for chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, on the missiles to deliver them, and on his gaudy palaces.

Mr Powell wants to tighten up screening for weapons measures at Iraq’s borders. Only the most incorrigible optimist would buy this solution. Past experience suggests Saddam will find ways to import all the items he needs for his weapons of mass destruction. And there are other reasons why Colin Powell’s plan is doomed to failure

Firstly, we must consider the character of Saddam. Given that an Iraqi delegation at the United Nations has said inspectors will not be allowed to return to the country under any circumstances, what could possibly make him change his mind?

The Syrians will not help America for love. The US has no leverage over Syria and there is little it could offer as a ?carrot’, since the Congress is unlikely to agree to an aid package anywhere near the size that would be needed for President Assad to start reading from an American script.

Mr Powell is trying smarter ways of getting rid of the old foe

Meanwhile, Turkey is either unable or unwilling to stop the smuggling of oil from Iraq. All the action is concentrated in Kurdistan where the Kurds have a good working deal with Saddam, indeed some would say they have never had it so good. They have a de facto self-rule; Saddam, for the first time since the Baath took power in Iraq in 1968, is not terrorising them; and they are economically prosperous thanks to massive revenue from smuggling. The profits are shared on the other side of the border with Turkey.

America has no influence over Iran and the Iranians have no desire to help the US or discontinue a good source of revenue for their southern and western shores communities. Such extra income elevates the burden that otherwise would have to be met by Teheran. Meanwhile, Saddam is no threat to Iran while he is making the right kind of noises against Israel and America.

For those who continue to nurture the hope that some form of uprising led by the Iraqi opposition will unseat Saddam ? forget it. The Iraqis are so impoverished and so weakened by Saddam and by the sanctions to even think ? let alone to act ? against their leader.

Saddam has his officials decry the injustice of the UN sanctions, but deep in his heart, he knows the sanctions give him more control over his people, through the distribution of food and medicine. If he genuinely cared about the welfare of ordinary Iraqis, he would not have refused to spend the $4 billion earned under the UN’s oil-for-food programme on food and medicine for Iraqi civilians, instead leaving it untouched on the pretence of some lofty principle.

Iraq’s neighbours have a single criterion for appraising US policy. They want to know if Washington will liberate the Iraqis from their tormentor. If not ? if the new Bush administration is going to leave Saddam in power with his Sarin gas, his anthrax spores, and his nuclear devices ? then the neighbours don’t want to bear the brunt of his rage after the Americans poke him in the eye.

There are people in Israel openly discussing re-occupying the territories

Meanwhile the policy of patrolling the southern no-fly zone is turning out to be more of a political aid to Saddam than to the people it was designed to help in the first place. The policy was adopted to prevent Saddam using fixed-wing aircraft to suppress his people. As it happens, he doesn’t need such aircraft to do the job as he has other means at his disposal with which to terrorise the Shia population in the south, while he chose to make a deal with the Kurds in the north.

With every bomb dropped on Saddam ? and only one in four will find its target ? Saddam’s popularity soars and his allies in France, Russia and China (who updated his radar systems with fibre optics and modern technology in breech of UN sanctions) shout louder and more vociferously for sanctions to be lifted.

Additionally, Saddam cuts an increasingly impressive figure with some Arabs by claiming to be a 21st-century Saladin, with his efforts to repulse Christian crusaders and his vow to liberate Palestine from the Jews.

He has already invited Yasser Arafat and his Palestinian Authority to relocate to Baghdad. The sweetener: $1 billion (including $10,000 to the family of each Palestinian killed in the intifada). Saddam did not have to remind Arafat it was Ariel Sharon’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982 that forced him and his PLO fighters out of Beirut the following year.

However, of the $1 billion promised to Arafat by Arab Gulf nations to help build up the infrastructure and the economy of the Palestinian Territories, only $400,000 has so far been received.

Arafat is smart enough to avoid his mistake of 1990 when he wholeheartedly embraced Saddam after his invasion of Kuwait. Nevertheless, Saddam’s meddling in such affairs could have dire consequences. With General Sharon ? who is famed for his military toughness rather than his accomplished statesmanship ? in power, there are people in Israel’s corridors of power openly discussing the possibility of re-occupying the former Occupied Territories ceded to the Palestinian Authority. And who is to stop them?

Saddam claims to have one million volunteers already signed up for the campaign to liberate Palestine. Neighbouring Jordan, ? which gets all its oil from Iraq, and with two thirds of its population of Palestinian origin ? is sandwiched between Iraq and Israel.

The scenario recalls May 1967, when the late autocratic Egyptian leader Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser decided to conduct a sabre rattling exercise to keep the Israelis in check. He moved some 100,000 troops into the Sinai desert. The operation was a crazy excercise. Colonel Nasser had no intention of invading Israel, but the Israelis were taking no chances and launched the Six Day War, the consequences of which remain the basis for many of the Middle East’s current problems.

Both Israel’s General Sharon and Iraq’s President Hussein have proved capable of writing some mad scenarios of their own, without giving due consideration to the possible outcome. Like Colonel Nasser before them, both Sharon and Saddam long to be heroes. It makes the prevailing situation both unpredictable and dangerous, a nightmare scenario, not just for America, but for the whole world.

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