What about "the day after" we topple Saddam?

** In a live chat today from Baghdad via spirituality.com Scott Peterson, correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor and an expert on Middle East affairs, had this to say about the consequences of a US invasion of Iraq:

Gentry/Utah: Do you think life will be better if the Americans take out Saddam and put in a regime that the US government sees fit?
Scott Peterson: The hazards of trying to reengineer a new government in Iraq possibly outweigh the benefits. Because if chaos is allowed to grip the country -- as many Iraqis predict -- then it could result in a virtually ungovernable country.

That doesn't mean that it is going to split into three ethnic based regions, but what it does mean is that there could be a large degree of violence associated with revenge attacks and people getting back at those who they feel have caused them the most pain in the last 30 years.

The problem for American strategic planners is that while Iraqis may not be entirely in favor of their own government they are also deeply suspicious of American motives and they often blame the United States for ensuring that UN sanctions imposed upon Iraq for the last 12 years have been among the most strict in history.

They often accuse the US of being interested in controlling Iraq only for its oil resources and they believe the regime when it tells that the US has been responsible for the deaths of 100,000s of Iraqi children who the government says have died as a result of those sanctions.

This means that any government that is seen to have been imposed by the US will face an uphill battle in order to appear legitimate before most Iraqis.

And it's one of the reasons that Iraqi exiles -- some of whom are being considered by Washington to form part of a future government -- are so concerned about the "day after."
...............
One other aspect of reporting here is that you do have a greater understanding of why many Iraqis think the way they do and it is a value to Americans to read counter-intuitive analysis such that even if Iraqis don't care for their regime that doesn't necessarily mean that they want America to change it for them.
………………………………………….
Paula/Boston: What do you think American schoolchildren should know about Iraq and Iraqis?
Scott Peterson: …that not everyone here is Saddam Hussein.

When I visit the United States I am often surprised at how shallow the common understanding of Iraq is among Americans who see every aspect of this country through the visage of that one man. Regardless of their regime, many Iraqis are very well educated. They work very hard to feed their families. They have the same concerns about getting a decent education that we all share. They wonder when their country is going to be able to use its oil wells to rebuild itself.

And they are concerned about the future, as any of us would be, if that future included a war that promised to be so severe and so resolute that we have seen nothing like it for decades.
……………………………………………
moppo/boston: Tom Friedman in a recent NYTimes piece suggested that this is the time for Iraqi scientists and officials to defect. But a letter to the editor claimed this would actually hurt Iraqis more than help: "A potential Iraqi defector may decide to withhold his information, for fear of consequences to his country. Any revelations will trigger a devastating American invasion costing thousands of Iraqi lives." Is there that kind of patriotism there?

Scott Peterson: There is no doubt that Iraqis are worried about the consequences of a war and anything that might be seen to trigger that war could be seen as something that would yield many Iraqi casualties as well as American casualties.

While some Iraqis and many Americans may argue that a greater good could come from a war, many Iraqis themselves who have settled with this way of life for a generation are now as concerned about the consequences of dramatic changes and how they could affect their families and their lives.

In this respect, I think many Iraqis now are weighing up what they have with what the possibilities may be, and as pressure increases on Iraq from outside people will begin to make decisions about how they want their future to be.

---