The Gulf of Fools: An Iraqi General Looking for a Winnable War
He left Iraq during the 1990s, sometime after the defeat of the Gulf War. Maybe he lost a power struggle with other henchmen of the dictator (Arab high officials never leave office unless they are forced or feel threatened).
Maybe (most likely) some foreign country offered him more. Yet he never ever says one word of criticism against Saddam. He is still stuck in the 1980s, still fighting the Iran-Iraq war. That was the war when Saddam’s intelligence, including this man, told him that he can invade Iran and win a quick famous victory. That war opened the gates of hell for Iraq and its people: they are still paying the price of the folly of General Samarrai and his colleagues who either ill-advised Saddam that he can win, or maybe they were too cowardly to tell him the truth. The truth about both his foolish invasions of 1980 and 1990.
After the 2003 invasion, the Bush administration appointed him special security adviser to the new Iraqi government, even though some Kurds wanted him tried for war crimes, and rightly so. (Remember the point that he was probably offered more by some foreign country. Not sure they paid him for what: there were no WMD, and even I could have told them that the Iraqi army will quickly dissolve). I doubt he ever made it back to Baghdad; maybe briefly to part of Kurdistan.
Now he is out peddling the old discredited Ba’athist wares. He is seeking to avenge the fact that his elite group has lost its monopoly on power, and he is seeking revenge for old unwinnable wars. He is pushing for yet another war, this time hoping for American boys and girls to wage another war. Or, barring that, he is hoping for the ruling extreme right in Israel to unleash another futile bombing campaign. He is dreaming, and some unrepentant fools in the Gulf dream right along with him.
Oddly he is using the vast media of his old victims in the Gulf to do that, writing nearly daily columns of..…nothing new. (But maybe the potentates who own these newspapers don’t know that). It is sort of like having a mini-Himmler write a regular column for a Tel Aviv newspaper; I would not elevate him to the level of a Canaris (if you don’t know the story, check it out; very enlightening).
So, Saddam really ‘did not’ want to invade, he had no choice. And he wanted to open up Iraq, but….
As for these Gulf newspapers who endorse his old Ba’athist drivel, as the old song said:
A fool never learns.
Cheers
mhg
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