Global Policy Forum

By Brian Whitaker

Hands up if you know the answer to this: does Saddam Hussein want sanctions against Iraq to be lifted?

The question is trickier than it looks. Take last month's Arab summit in Amman, for instance, where a call for the lifting of sanctions was abandoned because of opposition from one country - Iraq itself. The draft resolution also called for an end to American-British bombing in the no-fly zones and could, if approved, have been hailed as a major diplomatic success for Iraq.

Instead, Iraq ended up quarrelling with the countries it had been looking to for support. One Arab leader who attended the meeting described Iraq's attitude as "perplexing". In return for Arab support on the lifting of sanctions, the draft resolution did not require Iraq to do much beyond trying to resolve outstanding issues amicably and agreeing to respect the independence and sovereignty of Kuwait. Iraq objected on the grounds that it has already said that it respects Kuwait's sovereignty, and asking it to say so again implies it cannot be trusted. Iraq's objections to other parts of the draft were equally pedantic and trivial.

Away from the cameras and microphones, the Iraqi delegation behaved in a generally belligerent manner that included personally insulting King Abdullah of Jordan, who hosted the meeting. It became apparent to many of those attending that the Iraqi delegation had clear instructions from Saddam Hussein not to accept the resolution under any circumstances. This lends further support to the argument - advanced by a number of experts - that Saddam does not want sanctions to be lifted.

Sanctions, they suggest, have facilitated Saddam's control over the population, partly because of food rationing and partly because the Iraqi government is able to use sanctions as an excuse for its own shortcomings. Internationally, the disastrous consequences of sanctions for ordinary Iraqis have delivered a series of propaganda victories to Saddam.

If that interpretation is correct, the way to inflict maximum damage on the Baghdad regime would be to lift sanctions immediately. But, while there is no doubt that sanctions in their present form have helped Saddam in some ways, they are also causing him serious difficulties in other areas - such as having oil revenue controlled by the UN. So the question is really whether the benefits for Saddam outweigh the disadvantages.

A more subtle interpretation of Iraq's attitude - which could also explain the Iraqi delegation's behaviour in Amman - is that Saddam finds sanctions an inconvenience, but not an intolerable one. He believes that they will fizzle out of their own accord and, if he makes no concessions in the meantime, he shall one day claim a final victory in the Mother of Battles.

In the dying days of the Clinton administration, it certainly looked as if sanctions might be on the point of collapsing. But Colin Powell, the new US secretary of state, has other ideas. Although Mr Powell's plans for "smart" sanctions are not yet complete, the signs are that they will look gentler, but bite Saddam harder. The gentle bit is to take a much more relaxed approach towards trade with Iraq and to allow a resumption of commercial flights. This will not only help ordinary Iraqis but will also reduce the scope for controversy of the kind that has helped Iraq to win sympathy abroad in the past. Publicity-generating "humanitarian" flights, for example, will simply become unnecessary. The sting in the tail is that, even with greater freedom to import what it wants, Iraq's oil revenue - its only significant source of income - will still have to be channelled through the UN. At the same time, more effort will be made to block any sources of income that are outside UN control (such as oil smuggling).

Apart from the compulsory deductions for Iraq's oil revenue, which are made by the UN to feed the Kurdish minority in the north and to compensate victims of the invasion of Kuwait, this will mean that Saddam cannot regain full control of the country's finances. Besides that, western efforts to cajole Saddam into allowing weapons inspectors to return - so triggering a suspension of sanctions - will probably stop.

Sanctions, for all practical purposes, will be permanent so long as Saddam remains in power. This ought to worry Saddam, since it combines the disadvantages (from his point of view) of lifting sanctions with the disadvantages of retaining them. Before long, he could be regretting his missed opportunity in Amman.