Death to Saddam Hussein? Let His Own People Decide : Assassination: Even Lincoln believed that tyrannicide was morally justifiable. But it’s not the business of outsiders.

If Abraham Lincoln were alive today, he would probably justify the assassination of Saddam Hussein. It is ironic that Lincoln, himself a victim of an assassin’s bullet, believed in tyrannicide--the killing of a tyrant.

I consulted Lincoln’s collected works to discover his views on tyrants and tyranny. The results may surprise those who think of the Great Emancipator as a soft-hearted humanitarian. After surveying the history of brutal tyrants, Lincoln concluded that tyrannicide was morally justified when a people had suffered under a tyrant for a long time, when all legal and peaceful means to oust him had been exhausted and when the prospects for his early departure were grim. When these three conditions were met, Lincoln asserted, the people have a right, indeed a moral obligation, to rise up and kill him. Lincoln, of course, was not speaking of short-term, tinpot dictators, but of cruel and entrenched tyrants.

This drastic action is known in the Judeo-Christian moral tradition as justifiable tyrannicide. Similar to the Christian doctrine of the just war, morally admissible tyrannicide must have a just purpose, employ proportionate means and have a reasonable prospect of advancing the cause of justice. The agonizing decision to take such last-resort action must involve moral and prudential calculation.

Now, back to Saddam. That he qualifies as an entrenched tyrant under Lincoln’s definition, few would dispute. He is a brutal and messianic dictator with an ominous resemblance to Hitler and Stalin. His arrogant cult of personality does not distinguish between the people of Iraq and his own person. Under his unstated banner, “The people and I are one,” this ruthless dictator has subjected the Iraqis to eight years of bloody war with Iran and has subdued his Kurdish minority with poison gas. He received the glory, and his people paid the price.

The problems and potential benefits of justifiable tyrannicide are tragically illustrated by the failed July 20, 1944, plot to assassinate Hitler. Appalled by Hitler’s demonic campaign against the Jews and his irrational prosecution of an unwinnable war, a group of high German military officers, including Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, and German church leaders, including Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer, conspired in 1943 to assassinate the Fuehrer.

Germany, the occupied countries in Europe, and the world would have been spared immeasurable suffering if the assassination attempt had succeeded--if Hitler had died by tyrannicide rather than suicide. Some scholars estimate that more human beings perished in the nine months of war after July 20, 1944, than in the previous 59 months of the war.

If Hitler had been killed in 1943 or 1944, millions of lives would have been saved. History is full of ifs. But permit me to suggest one more--if Saddam Hussein had been killed by his own people after he used poison gas against Iraqi Kurds, in all probability the invasion of Kuwait would not have taken place. And 500,000 American soldiers would not now be in the Persian Gulf. No Scud missiles would have been fired at Israel or Saudi Arabia, and much suffering would have been avoided.

Thanks to the firm leadership of President Bush and the coalition he forged, a raped and pillaged Kuwait has been liberated.

No one now knows the eventual fate of Saddam. He may commit suicide, escape or be brought to justice as a war criminal.

But if one accepts the logic of Lincoln, there may be a swifter and equally just way to deal with Saddam than subjecting him to a protracted and morally ambiguous war-crimes trial. That way is tyrannicide. But the deed should be done by those who have suffered the most and the longest--the Iraqi people. And it must be exquisitely planned. Those who strike the king must strike to kill. Better the death of a brutal tyrant than the slaughter of 100,000 innocent people.

Loose talk in Washington about assisting in the demise of Saddam is just that. Americans and other foreigners would be well advised not to get involved in such an act. As Lincoln implied, the people who have suffered directly under the tyrant’s yoke have the moral right, indeed the obligation, to liberate themselves from his tyranny. If they lack the courage and imagination to act, they will continue to suffer. The hour is late, but not too late for patriotic Iraqis to act.