There is little debate that SH is a despot, power weilding maniac. His advance to power in Iraq is hardly in the democratic mold and his maintainance of hois power has been through the most brutal of methods. He has used chemical weapons against his own people. I doubt anybody would defend SH in any way. Yet, those who talk of illegal actions against Iraq give the man a legitimacy that I don’t think he deserves. Calls for sovereignty hold little water in my book. I understand that the world community has recognized him as such, but can’t the same world community basically tell him, “Well you blew it, time to go?”
You are right: I think the world community could. Then again, George W. Bush isn’t the world community.
Of course, dictators are only legitimate if the U.S. government says they are–we used to kinda like Hussein, not 'cause he was a swell guy, but because we hated Iran even more. (Until, of course, our loyal president sold weapons to that terrorist-sponsor nation, but that’s another story.) Nixon like Pinochet so much that he sent in the CIA to bump off the democratically elected ruler of Chile. We used to like Noriega, until it became politically expedient to turn the other way. We’ve cozied up to despotic regimes in the Middle East as a marriage of convenience, to help us against other despots who we find even worse. We’ve helped prop up thuggish dictators all over the world, and helped snuff out some others, and we’ve changed our tune as to the legitimacy of many third world dictators over the years. It’s a Machiavellian calculation.
By the same right that we’re going to rule it.
He gained power in a coup against Gen. Bakr in 1979, so he’s been leading the country for 24 years, which pretty much gives him legitimacy.
Legitimacy isn’t a magic formula. You gain it if everyone says you have it.
Actually, I’d say you have it until someone takes it away from you.
If we truly believed in the ideas upon which our country was founded, we would say that the only legitimacy a government can claim is that a majority of the people support it. You know…
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the consent of the governed.” - Jefferson, Thomas et. al., Declaration of Independence
Says there that no one needs to prove to us that you only hold power legitimately when the people you hold it over say you can. If you don’t believe that, you can go bow down to some monarch, saying God decreed they should rule.
All dictators fix elections, so you can’t go by Saddam Hussein’s vote count. The fact that the Iraqi people have left him in power for so long says they’ve basically consented to his rule. Of course the option in Iraq is currently: A) pay at least lip service to the guy; or B) risk death. Kinda undermines the sincerity of their consent, hmm?
Of course, if that were the only reason to go to war, we’d be fighting half the world right now, and our “Coalition of the Willing” would be a couple of nations smaller.
Our trouble is that before America cranked up in the 18th century, there was no other democracy in the world to show us how you conduct foreign policy as one. So we go the old monarchial route, and in each country, we immediately look around for The Guy with the Epaulets, and deal with him as the legitimate ruler.
What we should do, is go to the people of that nation first, and ask them if the Guy with the Epaulets is the one who truly speaks for them.