The "Secular" Hussein - One

The "Secular" Hussein - One of the anti-war left's most facile tropes is the notion that Al-Quaeda detests Hussein because he's "secular".

Mark Steyn trashes that, among many other strawmen, in today's piece on the subject:

The surprise was Powell's confident assertion of Saddam's links to terrorism and the presence in Baghdad for eight months of key al-Qaida personnel with links to the recently arrested ricin terrorists in Britain. The secretary of state was at pains to emphasize that these agents' recent schemes have been principally against European targets. In other words, nations that put their investment in interminable UN proceduralism do so at their own peril. If you accept what he says, then it moves the debate beyond Resolution 1441: If al-Qaida's in Baghdad, then that's not a UN discussion topic but a threat to U.S. security.

You can choose not to believe that, if you wish. The evidence is circumstantial, and as an unending torrent of alleged experts assure us nightly, the ''fundamentalist'' Islamists like al-Qaida revile ''secular'' Baathists like Saddam. That's a lot of bunk. For one thing, Iraq has recently produced a collector's item edition of the Koran written entirely in Saddam's donated blood. That makes him rather less ''secular'' a leader than, say, Hillary Clinton or Gerhard Schroeder. Anyone who regards Saddam's behavior these last two decades as a reliable indicator of the scale of his ambition will understand that he would have no ideological objection to making common cause with al-Qaida and several compelling reasons to keep them a going concern, if only as a distraction.

It's almost too absurd to have to remind people - dictators are motivated by survival, not ideology. Hitler and Stalin were allies for a time - against all conventional ideological wisdom. To say that Al-Quaeda and Hussein couldn't align together is Pollyannaish to an absurd extreme.

Posted by Mitch at February 9, 2003 02:37 PM