Beyond Saddam: The Arab Trauma

In the Gulf War that Saddam Hussein forced on the whole world it was only natural that the Iraqi president should be portrayed as if he were the essential problem. If Iraq were routed, Saddam destroyed, and the Iraqi military machine demolished— according to conventional wisdom—a new world order could be created in the Middle East and stability restored to the region. But that is not the case.

Saddam Hussein is not the disease; he is only the symptom. With all his brutality, aggressiveness, and tyranny, he expresses a social phenomenon and a historical reality that are much more complex and threatening than the personality of this violent village thug who became a brutal ruler possessing weapons that endanger the region and th...