U.S. Preference Is ‘Anybody but Saddam’ as Ruler

The Bush Administration, as it relentlessly increases the pressure on the existing government in Baghdad, has adopted an “anybody-but-Saddam” approach to Iraq’s postwar political struggles, even though officials realize that their strategy could produce a regime dominated by unappealing and anti-American forces.

Ever since the allied victory in the Persian Gulf War became assured, the United States has pursued two seemingly contradictory goals: ousting President Saddam Hussein and maintaining Iraq’s territorial integrity in the face of Kurdish and Shiite Muslim insurgencies that threaten to splinter the country.

In the long run, officials say, they do not expect either the Kurds or the Shiites to succeed. Instead, they believe that Hussein’s supporters in the Arab Baath Socialist Party or the military leadership will conclude that the dictator is a liability and will find some way to get rid of him.

The Administration is under no illusion that either the party or the military will put forward a progressive and democratic leader who would bring peace to Iraq and its neighbors. U.S. officials believe that most of Hussein’s subordinates in the party and the army are brutal autocrats in their own right. But the officials are hopeful that a new leadership would be willing to cooperate with the United States--just as U.S. officials were once hopeful that they could work with Hussein.

Nevertheless, the most open challenge to Hussein’s regime comes from the armed insurgencies mounted by Shiites in the southern part of the country and Kurds in the north. The Shiites are influenced, if not actually dominated, by Iran. The Kurds want to dismember Iraq, splitting off the northern region to form an independent Kurdistan.

Administration officials say that a victory by either the Shiites or the Kurds would pose serious problems for Washington. But they say the survival of Hussein would be even worse.

These officials reject suggestions that the Administration has not fully considered the consequences of its policy.

“Thinking it through doesn’t mean that we have decided who we want to take power and how to bring that about,” a State Department official said. “We don’t have the luxury of being able to choose (Iraq’s new government). You could say the policy is ‘anybody but Saddam.’ We are letting things take their natural course.”

But there are limits to the steps Washington is willing to take to shape the Iraqi government.

“We have to decide if we care as much about Iraq’s internal makeup as we cared about Germany’s after World War II,” said William B. Quandt, a former National Security Council Middle East specialist and now a senior fellow of the Brookings Institution in Washington. “We don’t have the same compelling national interests in turning Iraq into a democracy as we had in turning Germany into a democracy. Iraq is a Third World country of great pretense but not a great deal of capability.”

Nevertheless, Washington’s policy is far from neutral. The U.S. government is determined to keep the pressure on Hussein, threatening a military response if the Iraqi military uses aircraft or poison gas against the insurgents and dangling the offer of benefits to any Iraqi government that gets rid of the present leader.

Administration officials doubt that the Shiite rebels in the south can succeed in overthrowing Hussein’s regime, because they are divided between secular nationalists and religious fundamentalists. But if these officials are wrong in their analysis, Iraq could come under the control of pro-Iran militants, essentially the outcome that Washington tried so hard--and so far successfully--to avoid during the eight-year Iran-Iraq War.

Also, a key element in the Shiite insurgency is the Al Dawaa group, which has been openly anti-American in the past. Saudi Arabia’s Sunni Muslim government is even more opposed than the United States to the possibility of a Shiite government in Iraq.

The Shiites have a natural base because they are the largest religious group in Iraq, but they have never held even a share of power.

In the north, the Kurdish insurgents appear to be well organized and highly motivated. But they are less concerned about taking power in Baghdad than they are about establishing an independent or autonomous homeland for themselves.

Times staff writer David Lauter in Hamilton, Bermuda, contributed to this story.