Indigo wrote:So did you support the rule of Saddam Hussein, as opposed to simply believing that the region was better off with him in power?
It's very complicated. If I were to speak on behalf of my Christian Lebanese family and community, then the answer would be a definite yes, we always supported the rule of Saddam Hussein. He was especially close and friendly to Lebanese Christian/Maronites and he supported us during our war of independence and liberation both against Israeli and Syrian occupations. The materiel, financial, and political support he gave to Lebanese Christians is unrivaled by any other Arab leader in modern Lebanese history. A significant part of Christians' ability to defend themselves during the Lebanese civil war is owed to Saddam's support.
On another extremely important note, both Saddam and Hafez were secular. Despite all the differences that arose between them and between us (by us I mean religious and ethnic minorities in the Levant), they both guaranteed our existence, our way of life and our security when push came to shove. So no matter what misunderstandings arose even during wartime, we minority groups together with Saddam and Hafez were always united in our secularism and more importantly in our fight against Islamic fundamentalism, which was never even the slightest problem before the imperialist invasion of Iraq.
I will deviate for a moment from talking about Saddam to talk about one extremely important decision Hafez al-Assad took regarding the existence of minorities and in particular Lebanese Christians in the Levant. During the earlier stages of the Lebanese civil war, there was one point in which Christians were in a very dire and critical situation, on the verge of being overwhelmed by superior PLO forces who were being supported by the majority of Lebanese Muslims. So the Christian leadership asked Assad to step in as a peacekeeping force. After a complicated political set of events that spanned over a few years, the Christian leadership decided in a very cynical, opportunistic, and controversial move to switch allegiances from Damascus to Israel. Assad felt betrayed by the Christian community, and perceived this new allegiance as a grave threat that could result in a new Judeo-Christian alliance capable of furthering the spread of Zionism in the Levant. Thus he started to heavily arm the PLO and Muslim population in their fight against the newly Israeli backed ultra right wing Christian Phalangist parties. (Which I should stress were some of the most reactionary groups who were responsible for massacring just as much Christians as they did Muslims. They are the ones most responsible for Christians losing the war resulting in 90% of Lebanese Christians becoming diaspora. I only mention this so that people won't get the wrong idea that I am in some way a blind supporter of Lebanese Christians in a sectarian manner or that I'm a "believer" in the strict religious sense of the word.)
This arming of Muslims and the PLO proved successful and step by step Christian areas were beginning to fall under Muslim occupation. It reached to a point where the highest ranking political/military Lebanese figure in the PLO-Lebanese Muslim alliance, Kamal Jumblatt who was up until then in very good terms with Hafez, went to Damascus to ask permission from Assad to win the war against Christians finally, militarily, unconditionally and if need be ethnically cleanse Lebanon of the Christian community so that they may never pose a threat again.
This very possibility and even worse Kamal Jumblatts's proposal of completely destroying an ethnic minority be it politically, militarily or existentially so horrified Assad that he had this very person Kamal Jumblatt who was his closest Lebanese ally, assassinated shortly thereafter for simply letting the idea cross his mind. He had his close ally murdered to protect the very minority people who had betrayed him by siding with Israel. That just goes to show how secular Hafez was when it became an existential question. Every single Arab historian I've spoken to, some of which knew people who knew Saddam claim that he was of the same caliber in this regard. Both of them massacred populations they were at war with and I'm not saying that was in any way justifiable, but that no matter their sins, it never fell along sectarian lines. They were both secular down to the marrow of their bones.
Saddam never did support these particular Phalangist/fascist/Maronite groups. When I said he supported Christians, I meant secular Maronites like General Michel Aoun who lead the Lebanese Army in some of the fiercest battles against Syrian occupation during the country's war for liberation.
But at the same time no one was under any illusions. Saddam was very much a gangster in his own right, extremely self indulgent, not to mention being the farthest thing from a left-wing politician although he did offer millions of dollars of support to Marxists-Leninist organizations like the PFLP under the command of internationalist communist revolutionaries like Wadie Haddad and Carlos the Jackal, albeit his support for both Lebanese Christians and communist organizations outside of Iraq were of a purely opportunistic nature while at the same time he persecuted communists he deemed a threat in his own country. He in reality did not have a single anti-imperialist bone in his body.
And I'm not even going to get started on the long string of political and historical mistakes he made like the wars with Iran and Kuwait. I am not however one of those who believe that these mistakes were entirely groundless. I do see the logic in his reasoning no matter how false they now appear to be in hindsight. With Iran he believed that he was in part fighting the very same Islamic fundamentalism that most everyone now want to destroy. His mistake was in gravely underestimating the Iranian people's character as well as their military potential, and he paid dearly for it.
The issue with the Kuwaitis was a mesh of Saddam allowing himself to be played for a fool by the Americans, bad judgment, mounting debt, and Kuwaiti cynicism and stubbornness.
His war with the Kurds is something I'd prefer not to give an opinion on at this moment because it was an internal Iraqi issue and because I don't know enough about the details to express an opinion confidently.
Anyway I've never been a fan of retrospectively analyzing a persons actions. No one alive is fit to make predictions based on would be or "what if" scenarios. It's amusing to read such analysis but it in no way merits serious attention or consideration. Everyone seems to be a genius in hindsight yet a complete idiot in real time. That's what I believe. Proof of it lies in the current situation. You've got geniuses from everywhere thinking that they've got the ultimate solution to ISIL. I can't wait to see which one if any of them turn out to be right. The best part is that if this whole operation goes to hell and blows up in everybody's face, these same geniuses will look back and find excuses in the details, claiming that had this person or that person done this or that, it would have turned out the way they planned.
I have a very long incomplete draft where I critique retrospective analysis in general and of Stalin in particular that I will eventually post someday.
In conclusion Saddam was the kind of man you could work with so long as you did not pose a threat to his rule. The relationship was purely of an opportunistic nature, and it just happens that I was on his side during the anti-war student demonstrations in Beirut of 2002/2003, part of which the student branch of the Lebanese communist party were actively involved in. Otherwise I remember my youth before that in Lebanon as a time of indifference to Hafez's and Saddam's rule. I neither liked nor hated them. But it was very much a time of such peace and security unparalleled to any other place or time I've visited since or before that. Back then you could literally walk anywhere in the Levant 24 hours a day with a huge cross dangling from your neck and a bottle of champagne in your hand and never worry about a goddamned thing.
So until better days come along I can only reminisce about the old days with fondness. And until a worthy alternative to Saddam's rule manifests itself, I can only remember him as indeed a great man and a giant in Arab history.
I've been thinking about posting something on YouTube within the next few months in his honor unlike anything that's been seen on the Internet before among the Arab community. It's a video from the early 90s of one of the most famous and celebrated Arab singers/artists and an icon in Arabic cultural history signing a song dedicated to Saddam simply titled "Saddam". I have one of only two copies.
If I do finally decide to upload it, it won't be done in glorification of Saddam himself but rather in remembrance of better days when Saddam was the boss.