Saddam Hussein

Iraqi leadership had a number of issues in organizing a system under which they could all agree to live. Contrary to Western notions, democracy is NOT voting for leaders; that is only one part of democracy. Just voting on leaders creates elected authoritarianism and majority-minority repression. There are a number of societal requisites that make democracy viable and Iraq lacked these social pre-requisites, so they could not even agree on what system would work for everyone. In fact, the current Republic of Iraq still suffers from many of these problems.

1) Nationalism over Tribalism: There has to be a sense in the country that every group in the country is better off with everyone else in the country succeeding than failing. The benefits that accrue to one group of people should not be at the expense of all other populations in a debilitating way. Sunni Arabs, Shiite Arabs, and Kurds all tend to advocate for their particular ethnic, tribal, or religious grouping as opposed for the benefit of all people under the Iraqi flag.

2) Cross-Ethnic Civil Society: There have to be civil society organizations such as clubs, artist networks, political rights groups, and other similar organizations. But they must be united by cultural, philosophical, or humanitarian underpinnings as opposed to being a mechanism to foster tribalism. Iraq has almost exclusively civil society organizations that promote the divisions in their society such as political parties and religious groups.

3) Literate Population and Freedom of Speech/Press: Most people are only exposed verbally to positions that they already agree with and caricatures of positions that they do not agree with. As a result, being able to read and write exposes a person to opinions that completely disagree with their own opinion. This allows people to have different political beliefs than their families. Additionally, freedom must be granted to both express and actualize views contrary to those of the ruling coalition or the majority ethnic and religious groups. In Iraq, there is a high degree of illiteracy and minimal education, especially among women. Additionally, individuals who disagree with the dominant popular vein are often jailed or tortured for their "seditious" views of wanting to discuss why they don't want a theocracy. This is not to mention that many parts of Iraq are controlled by violent militias or Islamic State, which consistently prevent free expression through the use of violence.

4) Laws Evenly Applied / Rule of Law: No person, by dint of their power or connections, can be treated in a better manner than others and no person, on account of their differing religion, ethnicity, or tribe, should be treated worse. All people must have the expectation that a wrongdoer will be punished regardless of whether he is a male or a female or Muslim or a Non-Muslim and that the police will actively jail individuals intending to perform recriminations. In Iraq, connected people and male Muslims tend to have a superior position and are given a degree of free reign to bully other minorities into compliance. They are not interested in losing that power.

5) Virtue of Compromise: This is probably most important. The goal of the political process must not be for one party to get everything it wants, but for every party to get enough of what it wants to be satisfied and to accept that as a valid resolution. Compromising and accepting less than what you wanted initially, is virtually non-existent in Iraq and many of these groups would much rather cut off their noses to spite their faces.

One Opinion

Yes he did cooperate with them.

Different Opinion

Saddam Hussein was actually ideologically opposed to everything Al-Qaeda stood for. He never desired or cared for religion, let alone religious politics or Islamism. Saddam Hussein was an ardent Nationalist Secularist and opposed the Internationalist Islamist agenda of Al-Qaeda. Both are notably violent philosophies and both are in the Islamic World, but that is where the similarity ends. Both people/organizations had a fundamentally different view of the world and therefore were not aligned. He did not like the idea of having to give control to small cells that he could not control directly, and he did not like the idea of directly antagonizing the West. (Many of the things he did antagonized the West, but he did not do those things desiring confrontation.) Saddam Hussein's goal was regional supremacy and had no interest in the worldwide regime change advocated by Al-Qaeda.

The only reason a relationship developed between Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaeda after the start of the war is that it quickly became clear that the Iraqi Army could not hold back the American Army and that a guerilla war would be the only viable resistance to foreign occupation. Since Al-Qaeda excels at that type of warfare, he extended an invitation for them to come in, but this occurred only AFTER the Iraq War began.

In all fairness, Hussein really wasn't the threat; it was the vast store of WMD's in Iraq that the US needed to contend with.

Saddam Hussein was definitely a threat, but not necessarily for the major publicized reasons.

• He was openly hostile to the US after the first US-Iraq War.
• He had invaded Kuwait.
• He torched the oil wells in Kuwait.
• He was committed to arousing anti-US sentiment globally.
• He was willing to commit mass murders on some of his people and the Kuwaiti people, sometimes using WMD's.
• Iraq was a strong enough country to interfere in other plans the US might have in the area.
• Iraq converted their oil sales to use Euros as opposed to the US dollar, and encouraged other countries to do the same.
• He had fought a war with the US and still ruled the country.
• He could be a rallying symbol for anti-US imperialism.
• Their country traded with other countries, reducing overall dependence on Western nations.
• He was anti-Israel, and used Kuwait as a bargaining chip with Israel.
• He could not be fully controlled.