The Enforcer

Stephen Sackur

• Deterring Democracy by Noam Chomsky
  Vintage, 453 pp, £7.99, April 1992, ISBN 0 09 913501 9
• Illusions of Triumph: An Arab View of the Gulf War by Mohamed Heikal
  HarperCollins, 350 pp, £16.99, April 1992, ISBN 0 00 255014 8
• The Imperial Temptation by Robert Tucker and David Hendrickson
  Council on Foreign Relations Press, 240 pp, $22.50, June 1992, ISBN 0 87609 118 4

Saddam Hussein might yet win the US Presidential election. Not for himself of course – not even the failings of the American democratic system could give the Iraqi Ba’ath Party transatlantic popular appeal – but for the Democratic challenger, and current frontrunner, Bill Clinton. Had he been hired by the Democratic campaign President Saddam could scarcely have done more to tarnish George Bush’s reputation for foreign policy know-how. Almost every day, it seems, new evidence emerges of Iraq’s continued defiance of Gulf War ceasefire resolutions, whether it is the hampering of humanitarian efforts in the Kurdish north, the hiding of weapons in Baghdad or the killing of benighted Shi’ites in the southern marshes. And as Saddam’s image grows ever more grotesque in the eyes of the world, so does George Bush acquire the shrivelled, haunted demeanour of a beaten man.