Hussein Now Seen as Near Messianic, More Menacing : Politics: His speech, attack on Israel underscore anti-Western attitude like Khomeini’s, experts say.

If there was any thought that Saddam Hussein could be vanquished by the first waves of allied bombardment, it was shattered early today as the first Iraqi missile hurtled into Israel.

In Hussein’s actions and in his rhetoric since the war began, many analysts have seen a fundamental change that makes him potentially more menacing.

As recently as a few days ago, the Iraqi leader was almost universally viewed as a secular pragmatist who had seized upon a “holy warrior” image to win political support for his actions. So it was that many were convinced that he would carry the crisis to the brink of war and finally accept a compromise.

But with the outbreak of war, some now sense an almost messianic tone--particularly in his speech after Thursday’s first wave of allied bombing raids, with its images of President Bush as Satan and courageous Iraqis as “descendants of prophets and believers.”

Such phrases were the hallmark of the Iran’s late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who personified religious fervor in the Muslim world. “Vintage Khomeini,” said George Washington University’s Jerrold Post, a psychiatrist and former director of the CIA’s office for psychological profiles.

Joseph Kechichian, a RAND Corp. consultant on Middle Eastern affairs, agreed: “Over the past few days, I have been struck by the fact that (the Iraqis) were adopting anti-Western feelings almost identical to the Iranians a few years ago.”

No action could more clearly demonstrate this new commitment than the attack on Israel--fulfilling the most resounding promise that Hussein had made to his Palestinian followers, who regard the Jewish state as a blood enemy.

Throughout the day, Hussein had sought to project to the world an image that he remained calm and controlled, even as Western military analysts counted the damage that the United States and its allies had done to his war machinery.

In unusual television film released by the Iraqi government, a uniformed Hussein was shown kneeling on a prayer rug in what appeared to be his office, sitting at a computer terminal in a command bunker and bounding out of his limousine to shake hands with a small group of Baghdad residents.

“He strikes me as being very cool, very in control. He has obviously given this a lot of thought,” Kechichian said.

Still at issue, even after Hussein’s attack on Israel, is whether the Iraqi leader will directly confront the United States with his military, or whether he will remain in place absorbing brutal punishment and whipping up fervor until he can force the war to a bloodier phase on the ground.

“There’s still the prospect that he could just sit there and take it. If your goal is to get him out of Kuwait, and if he doesn’t surrender, you’re going to have to move in on the ground,” one White House official said. “There’s always the possibility that what he’s doing is saving up his resources for that.”

With a ground war comes the potential for heavy casualties. Hussein’s own army proved its ability to endure huge losses in its eight-year war with Iran; he has repeatedly questioned whether the multinational forces arrayed against him could muster similar resolve.

If that calculation is part of his strategy, Hussein would be borrowing from the war plan of Ho Chi Minh, the North Vietnamese leader who correctly calculated U.S. attitudes when he warned: “You will kill 10 of our men, and we will kill one of yours, and in the end, it will be you who tire of it.”

Then again, Hussein may have already accepted the idea of losing the war, but retains hopes of riding what he sees as its inevitable wake: an anti-Western wave sweeping the Middle East. “I’m not sure exactly why the Iraqis are not responding (to U.S. air attacks)” with vigorous defensive countermeasures. My guess is that they may have decided to lose the war but win the peace,” Kechichian said.

To do that, Hussein must remain steadfast. “His goal really is to come out of this a hero,” Post said. His missile attack on Israel, whatever its other consequences, has probably secured him that status among many Palestinians.

Either strategy, however, would require the continued support of the Iraqi people. Despite his regime’s efforts Thursday to show him as a beloved leader of a people under siege, the tapes gave signals that he may be growing increasingly isolated, some analysts said.

Only a few generals were pictured with Hussein in the clip from his bunker, for example. It was a dramatic departure from the customary shots of him in large rooms surrounded by more than a dozen senior officers.

When the Iraqi leader made an apparently spontaneous stop to greet people from his limousine, there were only a few to meet him--a stark contrast to the mobs that usually form the background in his carefully staged television appearances.

“Success is assured,” a defiant Hussein warned Bush after the initial bombing attack. “Accursed be you and accursed be your objectives.”

But for all his rhetoric, “It isn’t good for him to have lost whatever he lost in this aerial bombardment,” said Laurie Mylroie of Harvard University’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies. “He looks weak. By any perspective, he looks weak.”

“There is no question of his resolution; the question is whether or not his countrymen share that,” added James Placke, a Middle East expert and former State Department official.

Tumulty reported from Washington and Fineman from Amman, Jordan.