Foreign
The US-led War in Iraq And Saddam’s Arab Legacy
Former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein raises his rifle in a salute and fires it November 20, 2000 during Grand Day of Quds festivities in Baghdad
Many Arabs saw Saddam Hussein as a strongman who stood up to the West, but most Iraqis despised his brutal authoritarianism.
In the eyes of many Arabs, Saddam Hussein, the former dictator of Iraq, was a true leader who stood up to Western imperialism, the Israeli occupation of Palestine and foreign intervention in the region.
But for most Iraqis, Saddam was a tyrant whose 25-year reign from 1979 to 2003 was marked by brutal authoritarianism, repression and injustices, especially among the country’s Shia and Kurdish communities.
Twenty years after the 2003 United States-led invasion of Iraq which, in former US President George W Bush’s words, aimed to “free Iraqi people” of their ruler’s oppression, Saddam’s memory remains divisive and polarising. But to many, the economic and political chaos unleashed by the invasion lionised Saddam and his legacy more than ever.
“Saddam embodied the image of the strongman who stood up to the US, Israel, and Iran – all the traditional ‘baddies’ in the [regional] narrative,” said Fanar Haddad, an expert on Iraq and assistant professor at the University of Copenhagen.
“This narrative deepened after the 2003 invasion as a way to be against the occupation and order that emerged. The fetishisation of Saddam was a backlash against what happened,” he told Al Jazeera.
The Palestinian cause
Before Saddam came to power in 1979, the Baath regime he was part of espoused anti-imperialist and anti-colonialist rhetoric, called for the unification of Arab countries, and nationalised Iraqi oil by taking over foreign-held shares in the early 1970s.
It also brandished the foreign policy of a regional power as it tried to diversify Iraq’s economy and develop its educational system, infrastructure and social services.
In 1969, the Iraqi-led Baath party founded the Arab Liberation Front, a small Palestinian political party that came to be headed by Saddam and join the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). The party espoused a pan-Arab ideology which believed the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was not a particularly Palestinian issue, but rather an Arab one that Iraq must fight for.
When Saddam became president, it was not a surprise that many Arabs supported the persona he portrayed as their defender and, especially, a champion of the Palestinian cause.
In the early hours of January 18, 1991, Saddam launched several Scud missiles towards Israel – a defining moment for Saddam’s image. The Iraqi attacks, three of which landed in Tel Aviv, came a day after Bush unleashed an assault on Baghdad over its invasion of Kuwait.
“Saddam stood up for us when no Arab leader did,” said Manal Mustafa from Jerusalem, referring to the attacks. The 72-year-old said she would always remember him for that.
Saddam also provided thousands of Palestinians refuge in Iraq and gave them equal rights to Iraqi citizens at a time when Palestinian refugees in other Arab countries lived in dilapidated refugee camps and had limited access to employment, healthcare and education. With a special status, Palestinians in Saddam’s Iraq were eligible for state jobs, free education and state housing.
Growing up in the 1980s and 1990s, Tunisian journalist Hadhami Khraief saw Saddam’s powerful speeches in defence of Palestinian and Arab rights as an “outlet” to the frustrations of her generation towards what she described as the impotence of Arab leaders against Western interventions.
“We weren’t concerned about how he governed Iraq,” said Khraief. “We were united by the common cause of Palestine. When Saddam declared his country’s full support of Palestinians, we considered him a voice for us,” she added.
Arab ‘strongman’ and Gulf wars
According to independent political analyst Mamoon Alabbasi, the first Gulf War, between Iraq and Iran, further boosted Saddam’s regional popularity, making him stand out for “fighting foreign intervention” by Iran while other Arab leaders were seen as “stooges installed by Western powers”.
But unlike the Iran-Iraq war, in which many Arabs supported Saddam for deterring what they saw as an external threat, Arabs did not back Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait, a fellow Arab state, in 1990.
“Had it not been for his disastrous decision to invade Kuwait, Saddam Hussein would have remained a national hero in the eyes of most Arabs,” retired Iraqi Brigadier General Sobhi Tawfiq told Al Jazeera. “And Iraq would have been spared the devastation and poverty that ensued from the inhumane [UN] sanctions and blockade.”
A UN-imposed embargo on Iraq in response to Baghdad’s invasion of Kuwait left Iraqis hungry and unable to access medicine and other basic needs. But while Iraqis suffered under the siege, Saddam’s refusal to back down glorified him in the eyes of Arabs.
Furthermore, the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, Saddam’s execution in 2006 on the day of Eid al-Adha, the country’s subsequent multi-layered decline, and the outbreak of sectarian violence, political instability and rampant corruption under American occupation erased many wrongs committed by the Iraqi dictator from Arab memory.
“Contrary to what his opponents sought, the invasion of Iraq was a watershed moment that kept Saddam’s legacy alive. It revealed how much he’d stood up to the arrogance of the West,” said Khraief. “The day of his execution left us with great pain,” she added.
US claims of Iraqi WMDs to justify the war on Baghdad were disqualified, but the invasion left a trail of destruction in the region that eventually gave rise to the ISIL (ISIS) armed group.
Iraqi hate mixed with nostalgia
While many Arabs supported Saddam before and after the US-led invasion of Iraq, Iraqis mostly continued to despise him for his brutal authoritarianism which isolated Iraqi society.
“Most Iraqis still look at him as a dictator and tyrant who destroyed and impoverished Iraq, wasted its economic potential and human resources, and caused it to fall backwards for decades,” said Iraqi writer Saman Nouh.
Farris Harram, an Iraqi academic and former president of the Writers’ Union in Najaf, told Al Jazeera that while Saddam had a sectarian approach, “oppressing Shia and Kurds in a concentrated manner, he was criminal and unjust to all”.
Alabbasi agreed: “Before the invasion, most Iraqis feared Saddam. It didn’t matter whether they were Arab or Kurd, Sunni, or Shia, you hated him.”
Saddam’s most renowned atrocities against his people included killing thousands of Kurds and Shia as he suppressed uprisings in the north and south during the 1990s.
The 1980s Anfal military offensive destroyed hundreds of villages and killed at least 100,000 Kurds, mostly civilians, with some estimates suggesting 180,000 people died. During that campaign, Saddam ordered a chemical attack on the Kurdish village of Halabja, killing 5,000 people – mostly women and children – on March 16, 1988.
In 1982, Saddam allegedly ordered the killing of 148 people in the Shia village of Dujail over an assassination attempt against him during a visit.
He was later tried by an Iraqi court and hanged for the Dujail killings, after which charges against him in the Anfal Trial were dropped and the trial proceeded without him.
Although many Iraqis supported their country during the first Gulf War, the implications of the eight-year-long war came at a massive human and economic cost that left many questioning whether it was justified.
“Many Iraqis believed that Saddam Hussein was the one who initiated the war with Iran,” said Tawfiq, who rose to the rank of brigadier general in the Iraqi military during the first Gulf War before retiring in 1988.
“The loss of tens of thousands of young Iraqis [during the war] and the injury of multiples more, was reason for many Iraqis to hate Saddam,” explained Tawfiq.
For US-based Iraqi journalist Riyadh Mohammed, Saddam was not only to blame for the start of the war with Iran, but he was also the reason behind “all of Iraq’s suffering”. He sent thousands of Iraqi men to their death, created an atmosphere of fear and poverty, and sowed the first seeds of sectarianism, said Mohammed.
“That’s why Arabs’ love for Saddam offends us. They [Arabs] don’t know what Saddam did to us,” explained Mohammed, adding that he was “very happy” to see Saddam’s statue toppled in Baghdad’s Firdos Square on April 9, 2003, in a move that made worldwide headlines and came to be a symbol of Western victory in Iraq.
But 20 years on from that day, many Iraqis now feel nostalgic “about a time when Iraq was strong and respected”, said Tawfiq.
“Iraq under Saddam had global influence, a developed economy, strong dinar [local currency], welfare, housing, health, education, bridges, roads, dams, airports, self-sufficiency and a respected passport,” said Tawfiq. “Iraqis remember that and wish to go back.”
Harram agreed: “Some Iraqis now view Saddam as having preserved the state’s sovereignty. They say his corruption and violations were less compared to what we suffered under the post-2003 regime.”
Dozens of Palestinians killed in overnight Israeli strikes in central and south Gaza as Red Sea tensions rise.
Here’s how things stand on Monday, January 15, 2024:
Latest updates and human impact
- Israeli attacks continue unabated overnight killing and wounding dozens of civilians in central and southern Gaza. At least 22 people were killed and a large number injured as a result of Israeli forces targeting al-Thalatheni Street in the central Gaza Strip.
- Yemen’s Houthi rebels fired an antiship cruise missile toward an American destroyer in the Red Sea, which was shot down by a US fighter jet, announced US Central Command (CENTCOM) on X.
- This was the first US-acknowledged Houthi attack since the US strikes on Yemen on Friday.
- Hamas released a 37-second video showing three Israeli captives held in Gaza on Sunday, saying they would reveal the fate of the captives on Monday and urging the Israeli government to stop the offensive.
- The Israeli military says it has shifted to a new phase of the war focused on the southern end of Gaza, where almost 2 million internally displaced Palestinians are running out of safe spaces to shelter.
- The Gaza Ministry of Health has said almost 24,000 people have been killed in the Israeli offensive. More than 60,000 people have been wounded in 100 days of war.
Diplomacy
- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that his country will pursue its war against Hamas until victory and will not be stopped by anyone, including the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
- The White House said on Sunday that “it’s the right time” for Israel to scale back its military offensive in the Gaza Strip.
- Egypt’s State Information Service (SIS) said in a statement on Sunday that one of the biggest obstacles to the timely delivery of sufficient aid to Gaza was Israeli inspection of the aid. The statement came after Israel blamed Cairo for the delay in aid delivery to Gaza during its defence at the ICJ.
- US Secretary of State Antony Blinken posted on X on Monday, calling for the release of the remaining captives held in Gaza on the 100th day since they were taken by Hamas. He did not mention the Palestinian casualties.
- Australia’s Foreign Minister Penny Wong, who described herself as a “friend of Israel” to the press, will travel to Jordan, Israel, the occupied Palestinian Territories and the United Arab Emirates this week, her office said on Monday.
West Bank raids and violence
- Israeli forces arrested 25 students staging a sit-in in protest against high tuition fees at An-Najah University in Nablus. Al Jazeera’s Hamdah Salhut reported that the protesting students received a text message from Israeli forces telling them to “surrender now”.
- Israeli forces have reportedly raided the family home of Nael al-Barghouti, the longest-serving Palestinian prisoner, in the village of Kobar, in Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank.
- The Israeli army said on Friday that it killed three Palestinian men who infiltrated a West Bank settlement and fired upon soldiers.
- The Israeli military killed two Palestinians after accusing them of ramming their car through a checkpoint near Hebron.
- Local sources reported that Israeli forces bulldozed two Palestinian-owned houses during a Sunday midnight raid in the city of Qalqilya, Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.
- Armed Israeli settlers broke into the village of Burin, south of Nablus, and attacked Palestinian residents’ houses and properties after midnight on Sunday, Wafa reported.
- “Violent raids and arrests have become part of the fabric of daily life in the occupied West Bank,” Al Jazeera’s Mohammed Jamjoom, reporting from Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, said. At least 347 Palestinians have been killed and thousands have been arrested since October 7.
Flames and smoke billow during Israeli attacks against Gaza on October 9, 2023
Human Rights Watch terms Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant’s call for a ‘complete siege’ on Gaza a ‘war crime’.
The Hamas movement has threatened to kill an Israeli hostage every time Israel bombs a Palestinian home without warning as Israel mobilised some 300,000 reservists and imposed a total blockade of the Gaza Strip, denying the enclave’s millions of residents access to food, water and fuel.
The warning from Hamas came on Monday as the death toll from the armed group’s surprise weekend attack climbed to 900 in Israel and revenge attacks by Israeli forces on the besieged Gaza Strip killed more than 700 people and left some 3,700 others wounded.
Residential apartment blocks, hospitals, schools and a mosque have been among the sites attacked by Israeli fighter jets, artillery and drones, according to media reports and witnesses.
Hamas spokesperson Abu Ubaida issued the threat to kill Israelis from the dozens held captive by the armed group. He said an Israeli hostage would be killed for every Israeli bombing of a civilian house without warning.
Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen said more than 100 people were taken captive by Hamas during the deadly cross-border incursion over the weekend.
As Israeli forces conducted intense retaliatory attacks on Gaza on Monday, Israel’s Defence Minister Yoav Gallant drew international condemnation by announcing a total blockade of the densely populated and besieged enclave, which is home to 2.3 million people.
Gallant said Israel would impose a “complete siege” on Gaza. “No electricity, no food, no water, no gas – it’s all closed.”
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was “deeply distressed” by the siege announcement and warned that Gaza’s already dire humanitarian situation will now “only deteriorate exponentially”.
Guterres also said some 137,000 people were taking shelter with the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) at schools across Gaza.
UNRWA said on Tuesday that almost 190,000 people have been displaced in Gaza amid the Israeli attacks and the figure is expected to grow further as the violence intensifies.
Nearly half a million people have also not received food rations this week in Gaza as UN food distribution centres have been forced to remain closed amid the Israeli onslaught, UNRWA said.
Human Rights Watch said Israel’s total blockade on the necessities of life for everyday people in Gaza was a war crime.
“Defense Minister Gallant’s statements are abhorrent,” Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.
“Depriving the population in an occupied territory of food and electricity is collective punishment, which is a war crime, as is using starvation as a weapon of war. The International Criminal Court should take note of this call to commit a war crime,” he said.
Abhorrent. This is a call to commit a war crime by @yoavgallant. The @IntlCrimCourt should take note.
Quote by @OmarSShakir ⤵️ https://t.co/kKVo6YtpI1 pic.twitter.com/neHQMwnXVn
— Human Rights Watch (@hrw) October 9, 2023
Shakir also condemned the threat by Hamas to kill hostages, warning that such action was also a war crime.
“All hostages should be safely released to their families,” he said.
Grotesque. These threatened acts would amount to flagrant war crimes by Hamas’ armed wing. The @IntlCrimCourt will be watching.
Quote from @OmarSShakir ⤵️ https://t.co/FuNtvHe0YG pic.twitter.com/6cnHODLWyZ
— Human Rights Watch (@hrw) October 9, 2023
On the diplomatic front, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan called on Hamas and Israel to immediately end violence and protect civilians, the Egyptian presidency said.
Erdogan urged Israel against “indiscriminately” attacking civilians and delivered measured criticism of Hamas, urging both sides to respect the “ethics” of war.
The United Kingdom, French, German, Italian and US governments issued a joint statement on Monday recognising the “legitimate aspirations” of the Palestinian people and supporting equal measures of justice and freedom for Israelis and Palestinians alike.
But the prospect that fighting could spread also alarmed the region and the world.
Lebanese armed group Hezbollah fired rockets into northern Israel in response to at least three of its members being killed in Israeli shelling of Lebanon.
Israel said one of its deputy commanders was also killed in an earlier cross-border raid from Lebanon.
US President Joe Biden holds a bilateral meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the sidelines of the 78th United Nations General Assembly in New York City, the US, September 20, 2023
Social media users, including journalists and observers, are calling out what they call a ‘double standard’.
After Saturday’s surprise attack by the Palestinian group Hamas on Israel, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy took to the social media platform X to offer “condolences go out to everyone who lost relatives or close ones in the terrorist attack”.
He also stated, “Israel’s right to self-defence is unquestionable.”
Many world leaders, including US President Joe Biden and UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, shared similar sentiments.
The world is seeing appalling images.
Thousands of rockets raining down on Israeli cities. Hamas terrorists killing not only Israeli soldiers, but civilians on the streets and in their homes.
It’s unconscionable. Israel has a right to defend itself – full stop.
— President Biden (@POTUS) October 7, 2023
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen stated, “Israel has the right to defend itself – today and in the days to come. The European Union stands with Israel.”
Accusations of Western ‘double standards’
Some social media users have criticised these statements, saying they highlight a double standard.
The world is seeing appalling images.
Thousands of rockets raining down on Israeli cities. Hamas terrorists killing not only Israeli soldiers, but civilians on the streets and in their homes.
It’s unconscionable. Israel has a right to defend itself – full stop.
— President Biden (@POTUS) October 7, 2023
Ukraine’s right to defend itself is praised by most international leaders while Russia’s invasion is condemned, but commentators said the same cannot be said about Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.
Aaron Bastani, a leftist British journalist, said on X that there’s a “clear double standard in endorsing terrorism against civilian targets in Ukraine … and condemning it by Palestinians”.
Many users said Western diplomats and media support the Ukrainians who defend their land, but label the Palestinians fighting against Israel as “terrorists”.
https://twitter.com/KhaledBeydoun/status/1710787817415082349?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1710787817415082349%7Ctwgr%5E6acf829869e993177f32aa38aa48c02f38cb7f61%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.aljazeera.com%2Fnews%2F2023%2F10%2F9%2Fwestern-leaders-accused-of-hypocrisy-over-response-to-palestine-ukraine
An illustration of a woman’s face, in which one eye is closed beside a Palestinian flag, and one eye open beside a Ukrainian flag, has been regularly shared as a symbol of the West’s alleged double standards in how the two conflicts are viewed.
https://twitter.com/OnlinePalEng/status/1710994682883273172?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1710994682883273172%7Ctwgr%5E6acf829869e993177f32aa38aa48c02f38cb7f61%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.aljazeera.com%2Fnews%2F2023%2F10%2F9%2Fwestern-leaders-accused-of-hypocrisy-over-response-to-palestine-ukraine
Clips also emerged on social media from a CNN interview with Mustafa Barghouti, the general secretary of the Palestinian National Initiative, in which he posed the rhetorical question, “Why does the United States support Ukraine in fighting occupation – while here they support the occupier, who continues to occupy us?”
The hypocrisy and double standards of western governments and media platforms dealing with situations in Ukraine-Russia and Palestine-Israel blow the mind. Absolute disgrace.
— Said Yacoubi (@AlyacoubiSaid) October 8, 2023
It is not the first time Western nations have been accused of double standards in their stance on the Ukraine war.
Earlier in the year, Amnesty International published a report highlighting the West’s “double standards” on global human rights.
Agnes Callamard, Amnesty’s secretary-general, told Al Jazeera at the time that the occupation of Palestinian territory was a “particularly important one”.
“Without making any comparison between Russia’s aggression and Israel … it is clear the Palestinian people are under a regime of oppression – a regime of occupation and a regime of apartheid,” Callamard told Al Jazeera.
Over the last three days, X users recirculated earlier statements calling out what they called Western hypocrisy, sharing video by the Irish lawmaker Richard Boyd Barrett from March 2022 in which he berated the Irish government’s double standards regarding Ukraine and Palestine:
“You’re happy to use the most strong and robust language to describe the crimes against humanity of [Russian President] Vladimir Putin, but you will not use the same strength of language when it comes to describing Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians.”
Barrett on Sunday again called out what he described as “shocking double standards of Western leaders supporting Ukraine resistance but condemning Palestinian[s].”
Meanwhile, others warned against comparing conflicts.
https://twitter.com/denfordauthor/status/1710993737738768607?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1710993737738768607%7Ctwgr%5E6acf829869e993177f32aa38aa48c02f38cb7f61%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.aljazeera.com%2Fnews%2F2023%2F10%2F9%2Fwestern-leaders-accused-of-hypocrisy-over-response-to-palestine-ukraine
And some cautioned that Hamas and the Palestinians should not be seen as one and the same.
Just to clarify:
Palestine did not mount an attack on Israel. An Iranian proxy militia did. Palestinians are by and large huddled in their homes praying that an Israeli airstrike won't kill them or theirs. Hamas is the culprit here. This isn't a decentralized grassroots thing.
— Romeo Kokriatski (@VagrantJourno) October 9, 2023
Ukrainian footballer Oleksandr Zinchenko, who plays for Arsenal, posted on Instagram, stating he “stands with Israel”.
Zinchenko has been a vocal supporter of his home country in its ongoing defence against Russia, and he participated in a Game4Ukraine charity match in London earlier this year to raise money for Ukraine.
After online backlash, with some questioning an alleged double standard in his support of Israel, the footballer removed the post and switched his social media account to private.
Several people claimed that Zinchenko’s football club, in not responding to his comments, was guilty of hypocrisy after they had distanced themselves from former player Mesut Ozil’s comments in 2019 over alleged human rights abuses against Uighur Muslims in China.
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