Informed Comment Homepage

Thoughts on the Middle East, History and Religion

Header Right

Donate

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Google+
  • Email
  • RSS
  • Featured
  • US politics
  • Middle East
  • Environment
  • US Foreign Policy
  • Energy
  • Economy
  • Politics
  • About
  • Archives
  • Submissions

© 2023 Informed Comment

  • Skip to content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
Uncategorized

Asharq Al Awsat Reporter Abdel Baqi

Juan Cole 01/27/2003

Tweet
Share
Reddit
Email
0 Shares

Asharq al-Awsat reporter Abdel Baqi Khalifa reports from Sarajevo today that retired Yugoslav officers and some politicians are warning Saddam Hussain against repeating the Kosovo scenario in Baghdad. These officers tilted toward Iraq in the past, and put their concerns in a letter to the Iraqi leader. Signatories include a former Yugoslav foreign minister. They painted a vivid picture of Iraq’s likely fate, under bombardment from American smart bombs and cruise missiles.

They offered him some advice if he does stand and fight, including the need to establish some dummy military sites to draw American fire and to fill Baghdad with human shields so as to avoid an American occupation of that city. Khalifa says that many of the officers had friendships with Saddam and his circle that went back to the days of Tito. Saddam had admired the latter until Tito refused to turn against Egypt after Camp David at Iraq’s request, saying Yugoslavia’s policy was to remain friends with all.

The analogy the retired officers drew to Kosovo is insightful, since that became the new model for US wars against smaller powers, and the experience there will certainly inform US tactics.

They would have been better off, however, simply telling him that fighting the US is suicidal and that no number of human shields or decoys is going to prevent his army from meeting the same fate that of Serbia did in Kosovo if he does not voluntarily shed the weapons of mass destruction. Increasingly, it may be too late for him even to agree to do that.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

About the Author

Juan Cole is the founder and chief editor of Informed Comment. He is Richard P. Mitchell Professor of History at the University of Michigan He is author of, among many other books, Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires and The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Follow him on Twitter at @jricole or the Informed Comment Facebook Page

Primary Sidebar

STAY INFORMED

Join our newsletter and have sharp analysis delivered to your inbox every day.

Twitter

Follow Juan Cole @jricole or Informed Comment @infcomment on Twitter

Facebook



Sign up for our newsletter

Informed Comment © 2023 All Rights Reserved

Posting....