Just wait till you have Shi’ites of your own

If you are looking for Saddam Hussein, he’s at my house. He came in through the TV, newspapers, and internet about a month ago, and has made my living room his lebensraum. Whether or not he happens to be physically deceased, he is spiritually present, like a dark cloud between the couch and the television set. Saddam Hussein constantly monopolizes the attention of those who see him, and while his adversaries in the US government have been quick to demonize him, by doing so, they gave him free entrance into the public consciousness because they failed to heed the advice all mothers give about dealing with a bully; namely "ignore him, and he will go away".

When Saddam is not seen, he is the subject of constant analysis and speculation, much like a distant relative visiting from afar. About a decade ago, when I knew little about him, and cared less, he made his first appearance in my living room, but not without making a seriously bad first impression, much like my chronically unemployed uncle from Florida. Like many an unemployed relative, "Uncle Saddam" seems to have moved in for an extended stay. At least he gets along great with the cat. After all, they have a lot in common: both have thick, silky black hair, are exceedingly vain about their appearances, and love to torture their prey.

One evening over dinner, having exhausted all other material for conversation, I asked him if it were really true that he had biological weapons as part of his regime’s arsenal. ‘Well," he said, as he shoveled away the food, "We experimented with the germ warfare in the 1980s. When the weapons inspectors came in during the 1990s, I tried hiding some of the inventory, moving the germ cultures from hiding place to hiding place. Eventually, I came to realize that sooner or later there would have been an accident, so I had the biological weapons destroyed: was Rihab Taha pissed! Her life’s work was gone, with nothing to show for it but the nickname of ‘Dr. Germ’. The reason why I eliminated the germ warfare program long ago has its roots in our national culture. You’ve seen on CNN the way everyone in my cabinet would greet me with embraces and then hug and kiss each other every time we would have a meeting. With all that kissy-kissy stuff, if there had been an accident with the biological weapons getting released, the whole government would have been dead within a week."

"With all the places you could have gone, why did you pick my house?"

"I picked the most inconspicuous and unpromising place possible when I realized that I wanted to retire and not be bothered any more. Did you know that running a country is a lot like raising a family? The rich people are like toddlers: "I want this, I want that"; and they throw the most awful temper tantrums if they don’t get what they want. You have to remain firm in your stance and hope that you can wait it out. The Islamic extremists and the ethnic minorities are like the school age children with oppositional defiant disorder. Whatever you say, ‘No, No, No’ is what they say; and they generally tend to say it with guns and grenades. Then when you defend yourself, retaliate against them, or punish them for trying to assassinate your officials, they claim that you are ‘the bad guy’. I am at my wits’ end with the Iranian-backed rebels, who are just like teenagers. They did nothing but complain about my state security system and secret police. I am sick of having your news announcers call me "the Butcher of Baghdad". I just lost my temper when I massacred them after the last big public uprising when they threatened to overrun the state. I’m really very a nice guy. Ask the ones who really worry me: the followers of an ancient Middle Eastern cult who were neither discouraged nor defeated because their leader was tortured and put to a humiliating death by being crucified. I have always bent over backwards to be extra nice to them because they could defy my authority more effectively than all the rest, what with their membership in an international organization with headquarters in Rome."

"You sound like an overworked housewife. I never expected to be having girl talk with a dictator who is known for his machismo."

"Parenting a country is hard work. I don’t know why you women want to go into politics. Ruling a country is just like raising an extended family, except that you never get a rest; it’s worse because your subjects never grow up and go away.

Believe me, I know, I have a family of my own. If I had it to do over, I would have had neither children nor political power. I think you Catholics have something there with that celibacy thing. My son Uday was always a handful, but at least I could send him to Switzerland for a few years and take a break from dealing with him. I only wish I could have sent the Kurds along with him. Why do you think I just let them have the northern part of the country: I got tired of always having to take it back. Then a bunch of guerilla fighters who called themselves ‘Hizbollah’ and hid out in the Shatt Al-Arab figured they could get away with domestic terrorism and sabotage while I was trying to deal with the Kurds, and I ended up looking like the ‘heavy’ for destroying the livelihood of the Marsh Arabs when I drained the marshes to discourage the rebels. Your country has recently started to do a lot worse to people whose only offense is dubious associations".

"I just want to watch the Godfather and drink my Matteus in peace. I made up my mind to retire when I finally got sick of suppressing the Shi’ites: you Americans make such a big deal about how I denied them religious freedom, but you had no idea about the procession where they cut themselves with swords and beat themselves with whips. Would you want to run the risk that they could turn the swords and the whips on you? I had plenty of time sitting around in bunkers during the war to think, and one day, I just said to myself, you Americans can have the Shi’ites. Your leaders say that I am a criminal for using torture, so that’s why I came up with the idea of just handing them the country, in the end. Sure, there were a few misguided patriots who were inspired by my speeches to become ‘pockets of resistance’ defending their country; and some peasants with peashooters got lucky and happened to hit a helicopter’s fuel line. But it was a relatively trouble-free war against a defeated and demoralized enemy in the end, because while there were some in my military who initially decided that my government was not worth fighting for, in the middle of the war, I eventually came to that realization myself. I had changed my mind about defending and continuing my rule and decided that the only really effective punishment for the American government would be to just let them have Iraq and try to run it. They will be resorting to the use of torture before the year is out. And they don’t even enjoy it. I got the ultimate revenge after all! I am sitting on a suburban sofa, smoking a cigar. Take that George Bush and Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld! You may have envied my palaces, but I was never able to relax and put my feet up in any of them".