Iraq, Iran, and the Rise and Fall of Saddam Hussein

Saddam Hussein’s Methods of Political Control and Complicity

• The 1979 Party Purge: Saddam Hussein expelled $68$ people from the Ba'ath party. Of those, he ordered the remaining $46$ members to personally execute the other $22$ individuals.

• Psychology of Complicity: Saddam did not use his own "goons" for these executions. By forcing party members to pull the triggers, he made them legally and morally complicit in his crimes.

• Nickname and Rhetoric: Saddam was nicknamed "the butcher of Plata" (Plata is the capital of Iraq as per the transcript). When critics called him a butcher, he responded by saying, "I'm a butcher? You fired the shots. You pulled the trigger. You're a butcher. If I'm a butcher, so are you. If I'm a killer, so are you."

• Characterization: The speaker describes him as a "literal gangster" and implies he possessed the personality traits of a psychopath.

The Relationship Between Saddam Hussein and Ayatollah Khomeini

• Khomeini’s Exile History: Before taking power in Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini was exiled by the Shah.     * Turkey: He spent about $1$ year in Turkey.     * Iraq: He spent the vast majority of his exile in Iraq, approximately $13$ years between $1965$ and $1978$.     * France: He spent about $1$ year in France after being expelled from Iraq.

• Ideological Conflict: Saddam’s Ba'ath party was secular, meaning it did not have a state religion and did not encourage free religious practice. Khomeini, a Shi'a Muslim leader, preached against the Ba'athist government while in Iraq, calling it oppressive and urging the Iraqi Shi'a majority to rise up and overthrow it.

• Saddam’s Response: As Vice President in $1979$, Saddam exercised his authority to expel Khomeini from Iraq to France.

• The Irony of France: Exiling Khomeini to France was a strategic error. In France, Khomeini had more freedom, less scrutiny, and better opportunities to be heard. He recorded sermon tapes that were smuggled into Iran and met with Karim Sanjabi to draft a new constitution for Iran. Saddam avoided killing him because, like the Shah, he feared turning Khomeini into a martyr.

The Kurdish Minority and the Al-Anfal Genocide

• The Kurdish People: An indigenous ethnic minority in the Middle East. At the end of World War I, they did not receive their own state as part of the Versailles peace process. Their population is distributed across modern Iraq, Turkey, Syria, Armenia, and Iran.

• Perceived Threat: Saddam feared the Kurds because they were a sizable minority in Northern Iraq, practiced Shi'a Islam, and were being courted by Khomeini.

• The Al-Anfal Campaign: This was a genocide campaign named after a surah in the Islamic holy text.     * Method: Saddam used chemical weapons (mustard gas) against Kurdish majority areas in Northern Iraq.     * Target: The campaign was an attempt at ethnic cleansing, targeting men, women, children, the elderly, and animals.     * Death Toll: An estimated $180,000$ to $200,000$ Iraqi Kurds were killed.

The Iran-Iraq War ($1980$–$1988$)

• Origins: Iraq invaded Iran in $1980$. Saddam saw Iran as vulnerable due to the instability of the $1979$ revolution (the transition from a monarchy to a theocracy).

• Course of the War: In $1982$, Iran launched a counter-invasion. The war dragged on for eight years.

• Outcome: The war ended in $1988$ as a stalemate. There was no exchange of land, and it resulted in millions of casualties, described by the speaker as a "complete and utter waste of time and life."

United States Involvement and Foreign Aid

• Strategy of Support: Despite the genocide, the US supported Saddam because he was fighting Ayatollah Khomeini, whom the US hated.

• Types of Aid: The US provided money, weapons, supplies, and training to Iraq. Iraq became the third largest recipient of USAID in the world, following only Israel and Egypt.

• Laundering Support: Similar to how aid was sent to Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, help was often channeled through the Pakistani intelligence service (ISI) to keep it concealed from the public.

• Economic Motivation: The primary driver for US involvement in the region was maintaining access to "nice cheap oil."

The Invasion of Kuwait and the First Gulf War

• Financial Distress: Saddam was famously bad with money and spent lavishly on gilded palaces, gold-plated toilets, and luxury cars for his family. The Iran-Iraq war left Iraq in massive debt.

• The Kuwaiti Loan: Saddam borrowed $\$30,000,000,000$ from Kuwait. Adjusted for inflation, this equals roughly $\$70,000,000,000$.

• The Conflict: When Kuwait refused to waive the debt, Saddam decided to invade ($1990$).

• Motives for Invasion:     1. Eliminating the $\$30,000,000,000$ debt.     2. Expanding the Iraqi coastline on the Persian Gulf for trade.     3. Doubling Iraq's oil reserves.     4. Historical justification: Claiming Kuwait was part of Mesopotamia/Iraq based on old Ottoman-era maps.

• Operation Desert Storm: The US intervened in $1990$ because they were allied with Kuwait and wanted to protect the global oil supply. A military contingent kicked the Iraqi army out of Kuwait in a few weeks. This conflict is known as the First Gulf War or the Persian Gulf War.

Post-War Sanctions and UN Inspections

• UN Requirements: After the Gulf War, international law required Saddam to destroy all chemical weapons and submit to regular inspections by UN weapons inspectors for nuclear and chemical materials.

• The Standoff: In the late $1990$s, Saddam began turning away inspectors. This led to international fears that he was amassing a massive military arsenal (chemical or nuclear weapons).

The Events of September $11$, $2001$

• The Attacks: On a clear Tuesday morning (September $11$), Al-Qaeda hijacked planes and attacked New York City.

• Personal Anecdotes: The speaker was in 9th grade in Westchester. Many students had parents working in the World Trade Center. One student lost both parents. The speaker's uncle worked at $55$ Water Street, saw the first tower hit, and ran to Grand Central Terminal to catch the last train out.

• Intelligence Failure: The Clinton administration had credible intel prior to the attacks but did not act on it. Hijackers took flying lessons but famously did not want to learn how to land.

• Identification of the Perpetrator: Osama bin Laden and his group Al-Qaeda ("the base") were responsible. Bin Laden had refocused his attention on the US after the fall of the Soviet Union in $1991$, viewing the US as imperialist and oppressive.

The Invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq ($2003$)

• Afghanistan: The US invaded to find Bin Laden. Afghanistan was treated as responsible for harboring a "non-state actor."

• Iraq: Despite no evidence connecting Saddam Hussein to $9/11$, the Bush administration (George W. Bush) insisted on a connection.

• The Bluff: Saddam had been bluffing about having Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) to scare off the Iranians. When the US invaded in $2003$, they found no nukes or chemical weapons—only gold toilets.

• Saddam's End: He was found in a hole in his hometown of Tikrit in $2003$. He was tried by his own people for war crimes and executed by hanging in $2008$.