NEWS ANALYSIS : Political Effect Clouded for Both Hussein, Bush

President Bush’s decision to begin air patrols over southern Iraq 17 months after the end of the Persian Gulf War opens the way for a new drive to oust dictator Saddam Hussein from power. The new U.S. intervention poses both potential benefits for a politically beleaguered White House and serious risks.

With an effective U.S. and European air shield over southern Iraq, Baghdad faces a significant erosion of its sovereignty. “It further undermines the legitimacy of the regime,” said Augustus Richard Norton, a Middle East specialist at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. “It poses yet another humiliation and another cost to be borne by the regime.”

Operation Southern Watch could, in turn, help tip the balance of internal dissatisfaction against Hussein, U.S. experts said.

“There’s a strong possibility that this action or some subsequent military action by the coalition will provoke another uprising,” said Peter Galbraith, a Senate Foreign Relations staff member who has traveled extensively in Iraq’s northern Kurdish protection zone.

And it would do so without putting a major American ground presence on Iraqi soil.

Yet like its counterpart in Kurdistan, Operation Southern Watch is also likely to mean an indefinite deployment in the region, with all the unpredictable and uncontrollable possibilities that entails.

For one thing, many analysts warn that the new Bush strategy carries with it the risk of eventual escalation beyond simply blocking the Iraqi air force, if air patrols alone prove insufficient to end Hussein’s repression of the Shiite Muslim population in the south.

And, in contrast to Operation Desert Storm, the Bush Administration does not have unquestioning support either from the international community or at home, both because of suggestions that the move is timed to help Bush’s troubled presidential campaign and because of fears about Iraq’s future.

The Administration “is presenting it as a humanitarian gesture, but that begs the question: Why now?” said Laurie Mylroie, an Iraq expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, echoing the sentiments of both supporters and opponents of the original Persian Gulf intervention to liberate Iraqi-occupied Kuwait.

The White House contends that Hussein forced the allies’ hand with his defiance of U.N. resolutions barring repression of Iraq’s own citizens. Bush Administration officials note that the crisis did not escalate until April, when Hussein sent up his air force for the first time since the war--in response to Iranian planes in the area. When Iraqi planes were not checked by the coalition, he then gradually increased their use.

The turning point was not until late July, when Iraqi fixed-wing aircraft were used against the southern Shiites--in violation of the U.N. resolutions. Since then, the Administration has been busy persuading European allies to act and mobilizing support in the Middle East.

Skeptics, however, note that Hussein has been using brutal tactics in the south for more than a decade. They portray Bush’s action as a politically tinged effort that would boost the President’s image during a difficult reelection campaign by projecting him as the kind of strong, experienced leader needed to protect U.S. interests in a still-dangerous world.

Bush could have taken similar action earlier, they charge. “If we’d taken exactly these steps in March, 1991, or even a year ago, there’d be no Saddam to worry about,” said one congressional staff member. “And the tragedy that has overtaken the (Shiites) would have been entirely avoidable.”

Democratic presidential candidate Bill Clinton, who said Wednesday that he supports the U.S. action, nonetheless again criticized Bush for failing to move sooner.

Bush has pointedly denied any political motive. “You can be sure,” he said last Thursday in his speech accepting the Republican Party nomination, “I will never let politics interfere with a foreign policy decision.”

Beyond the question of timing, the new strategy points U.S. policy toward potentially difficult ground.

“Saddam is clever enough not to give the Western powers a clear target,” said Ambassador Robert Oakley, former Mideast staff director on the National Security Council under President Ronald Reagan. “He will continue to duck and dodge until after our election.” Hussein’s chief tools of repression, as always, are his large army and internal security forces.

His control of the country “is not threatened by denying him the use of his aircraft,” added Anthony Cordesman, author of three books on Iraq’s wars and national security aide to Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).

If Hussein raises the ante by using infantry and artillery against the Shiites--as many U.S. analysts think he will--then the United States and its allies would be faced with a painful choice.

“We would be confronted with the decision about escalating to some kind of bombing, the complex problem of attacking key military targets in Iraq to try to force the army to stop attacking the people,” Cordesman said.

What most concerns many U.S. experts, however, is long-term policy, or what is called the “end game” in policy circles. They fear that Operation Southern Watch is little more than a stopgap response to a complex long-term problem.

Just as the Administration did not develop an effective policy to check Hussein after Operation Desert Storm, specialists are already warning about what happens next--raising such questions as how long the coalition remains, at what financial cost and paid by whom and what tangible symbol would indicate that the mission has been accomplished.

Unlike liberating Kuwait, “victory” is not necessarily likely to be visible or obvious. So far, the hefty costs of maintaining warplanes and troops in the region are not being picked up by allies such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Germany and others, as they were during Desert Storm.

Of special concern is what happens if the implicit goal of Southern Watch is achieved.

“I don’t think policy has been thought through to the next stage very thoroughly,” said one U.S. analyst.