Saddam Hussein must be a bit of a joke to the rest of the Arabic/Islamic world. They won't have forgotten how a man who now accuses the US and UK of waging a war against Islam and of killing innocent Muslims, showed no restraint in his treatment of the Shia Muslims and Kurds in his own country (both before and after the Gulf War).
Dropping chemical weapons from Mirage fighters on his own Shia Muslim/marsh Arab citizens is surely a crime as big as anything he claims the west have carried out. And, best of all, why did he do it? Because his greatest fear (his only fear, his raison d'etre) is that his regime might be toppled.
I am certain that Shia and Sunni Muslims the world over must deplore the sheer cynicism of such words coming from a man who is patently not even a 'good' Muslim or follower of the Koran. A man that would not shy away from any act to maintain his own power.
Of course, the problem is the international sanctions against Iraq which are resulting in the deaths (through illness and starvation) of thousands of innocent Iraqi Muslims. The Muslim world sees through Hussein but it cannot forgive us for the sanctions. Bin Laden made reference to this in his infamous video speech on Al-Jazeera TV.
But let's not forget our perspective. Sanctions are in place for a reason. Hussein is building/amassing weapons of mass destruction. We know he has them - he used them against his own people. It's quite possible that he is in some way involved in the network of international terrorism - it doesn't take much of a leap of the imagination to come to that conclusion. If that's the case, by default you can expect that he would only be too happy to supply a bit of his arsenal to fellow anti-western activists who happen to live reasonably locally.
So the dilemma for the US and UK is what to do about Iraq. The very existence of the Hussein regime is a grave threat to the stability of the world but we cannot carry on with sanctions indefinitely. They will not work, Hussein would rather see every Iraqi woman and child die than cave in to UN requests to inspect his weapons dumps. The Iraqi people will not topple him, they are now too weak and do not have the means.
When the US speaks of extending it's war on terrorism to other countries, everybody knows that means Iraq. Will they take this oppurtunity to end the counter-productive shambles that is our policy of sanctions (a noose around our neck) by overthrowing Saddam? With him out the way, sanctions can be lifted, the Iraqi people fed, UN weapons inspectors can go in and remove all the "kit" that's buried out in the desert bunkers and the Islamic world will have one less reason to see the US and the rest of the western world as it's enemy.
It would hurt in the short-term, Arab opinion would be inflamed by such an operation. The Gulf region would be destabilised to the point of collapse. But in the long term, would it not be in everybody's interests?
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