For Hussein, Stalemate in War Could Be a Victory : Strategy: He apparently hopes to inflict heavy casualties on the allies and emerge a political winner.

To understand Saddam Hussein’s position today, American and British experts say, go back to his meeting last summer with U.S. Ambassador April Glaspie. The Iraqi dictator abruptly declared: “Yours is a society which cannot accept 10,000 dead in one battle.”

Today, Saddam Hussein, his back against the wall, is defiantly preparing for a bloody test of that theory.

Scholars who have studied the man for more than a decade warn that from the Iraqi leader’s viewpoint, the war has only just begun. Hussein can still “win,” in terms of increasing his long-term power and prestige in the Arab world, if circumstances break his way. And if things go wrong for Iraq--as the Pentagon promises--Hussein has few good options beyond ordering his army to fight to the last Iraqi.

“Saddam was convinced--and he is still convinced--that we can’t take casualties,” says David G. Newton, who served as U.S. ambassador to Iraq from 1984 until 1988. “He appears to believe his forces can take a pounding, inflict casualties on us in a ground war and then force us to draw back.”

“Saddam has very few options left,” agrees Christine Helms, a scholar who has served as a government consultant. “He knows that if he loses this war, the chances are that he will lose not only his job but his life as well. He may be thinking that the best strategy is to go ahead, absorb the losses . . . and inflict serious damage on American forces. That way, he will find out whether we can withstand the pressure--and he will show that there is an Arab force capable of inflicting real damage on U.S. forces.”

Bush Administration officials have publicly acknowledged that they are having a difficult time understanding the mind of a man who not only led his country into war against vastly superior forces, but even now expresses an almost breezy defiance in the face of thousands of missile and bombing strikes.

“They will never defeat us, nor will they escape the punishment they deserve,” Hussein told his commanders at the front last week, according to an Iraqi broadcast. “It is only a matter of time before the invaders leave and glorious and faithful Iraq . . . will liberate Palestine and the other Arab territories.”

Some officials consider Hussein’s actions irrational.

“I don’t feel that he thinks in a rational way,” Vice President Dan Quayle said last week. “If he thought in a rational manner, he would have figured out a way other than what faces him right now.”

Others suggest that the Iraqi leader may not understand the dimensions of his dilemma.

“We know less today about what’s going on inside Saddam’s mind than we did (before the war),” says Defense Secretary Dick Cheney. “It may well be that he does not have as much information as we do about the impact we’ve had on his forces.”

But diplomats, longtime scholars of Iraq and even a psychiatrist who has studied Hussein for the U.S. government all agree that his actions are neither irrational nor out of touch. Instead, they say, Hussein believes deeply that his army, hardened by its bloody eight-year war with Iran, can withstand the punishment of combat better than those of the allies--and that he still has a chance of emerging as a political winner if he can turn the war into a long stalemate.

“He’s convinced that he’s much tougher than we are and he can cause unacceptable casualties,” says Phebe Marr of the National Defense University, perhaps the most respected U.S. scholar on Iraq.

So far, the war has actually increased Hussein’s prestige around the Arab world--and thus bolstered his ambition to be recognized as the pre-eminent leader of the Middle East.

“In his world, the Arab world, he is gaining in stature,” says Simon Henderson, a British journalist who is about to publish the first full-length biography of Hussein. “He’s taking on the might of the United States and its allies and he is surviving. He has struck at Israel and caused casualties there. All this has done great things for him in the Arab world.”

“He can be militarily defeated but victorious politically,” Henderson adds. “His major requirement is that he remain alive.”

Jerrold Post, a psychiatrist at George Washington University who has analyzed Hussein’s actions for U.S. government agencies, agrees that the showdown with the United States has given him both political and psychic rewards.

“During December and January, Saddam seemed to go through a kind of transformation,” Post says. “He had always had ambitions to be recognized as a great Arab leader, but until now he had always been overshadowed by others. In this crisis, for the first time in his political career, he was exactly where he wanted to be. The world waited on his every word. When he uttered a gruff phrase, the Dow Jones Industrial Average went down 20 points. This really became the heroic struggle of his life.

“In the Arab world, one can grow in heroic stature by having the courage to stand up to a superior enemy,” Post notes. “Saddam’s strategy is to hold out through the first strike and then engage the American coalition in a war of attrition.”

At the same time, the scholars note, Hussein’s options are few--and his view of them is colored by what several described as “well-founded paranoia” about the Bush Administration’s intentions.

Seen from Baghdad, they say, the United States and its allies appear intent on destroying Iraq as a regional power and either killing Hussein or trying him as a war criminal--a perception that is not wildly at odds with reality. From that standpoint, Hussein’s decision to keep fighting is quite rational. The only question is how long his armed forces will agree.

“Remember the old poster: ‘Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean people aren’t out to get you,’ ” Post says. “Saddam sees his position as required by the aggression of outside enemies. . . . I believe he’s increasingly in an unyielding survival policy which he’s going to stick to until the last drop of Iraqi blood.”

“There is an element of paranoia here,” agrees Marr. “The Iraqis, and Saddam in particular, have believed that there is a conspiracy to destroy their power. How do you deal with a man who’s in the grip of a conspiracy theory?”

“Hussein has nothing to lose,” adds Helms. “He can’t retire to a condo overlooking the Euphrates. The threat of a war crimes trial only drives him further into a corner.”

As the war goes on, the scholars say, the key factor may become Hussein’s increasing isolation--and the possibility that some officers in the Iraqi armed forces may decide their chances of survival are better if their leader is removed.

“Saddam has been worried about his own security,” Marr says. “He has been increasingly isolated for some time . . . and isolation leads to miscalculation. The military, as an institution, has retained a measure of independence. It sees as its goal perhaps less the defense of Saddam than the defense of the country.”

So far, however, Hussein has shown no outward sign of cracking under the stress of battle.

“If you analyze the videotapes of his recent appearances, he’s been able to put on a good face,” says psychiatrist Post. “He doesn’t seem to be in a state of great angst or anguish.”

“He does look tired,” says Henderson, who has analyzed photographs of Hussein this past week. “I think he’s aged. He’s put on weight.”

“But then,” he adds, “this is all true of most of the rest of us as well. So I would hesitate to draw much from it.”