Hosni Mubarak and Saddam Hussein
By Anthony Gregory • Monday February 7, 2011 4:52 PM PDT • 9 Comments
The pro-establishment, neocon line on the tremendous revolutionary events in Egypt has essentially been as follows:
“Sure, Mubarak might be a brutal strongman, but he ensures stability. This is why the U.S. government has favored him—as a lesser of evils. Those trying to oust him from power have employed violence, and many in Egypt are fearful that they will lose everything to any major political upset. Those seeking to displace Mubarak’s rule do not have liberty in mind, but Islamist radicalism or even chaotic anarchy. They oppose the dictatorship because it is secular. And with him gone, will the Egyptian people actually enjoy liberty? Or will we see the rise of Muslim extremists in the flavor of Iran’s Islamic Revolution of 1979.”
Oddly enough, the arguments offered above applied many times over against the neocons’ pet project of the last decade: The Iraq war.
Saddam Hussein was indeed a brutal strongman who was favored by the US government for decades for being the lesser evil. The many factions fighting on the side of the US government against Saddam’s regime included domestic socialists and Muslim radicals who saw Saddam as a secular apostate ruler. The war against Saddam’s government also employed violence—but rather than mostly coming from the disenfranchised public and largely directed against those in power, the violence of the Iraq war involved the dropping of millions of pounds of explosives all over neighborhoods populated by everyday denizens of the country. Hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis have died in America’s war. And what replaced Saddam’s regime? Not liberty, but the rise of Muslim extremists exactly in the flavor of Iran’s Islamic Revolution of 1979. Yet through it all, partisans of George W. Bush’s foreign policy, and not a few left-liberal warmongers to boot, have echoed the same line: But isn’t the world better off without Saddam Hussein?
Yet they do not speak the same language regarding Mubarak. Won’t the world be better off with him out of power? And if his ouster comes internally from the populace, rather than externally from the largest military in the world, isn’t that a bit more in the spirit of the American Revolution, which nearly everyone on the right side of the spectrum, and the pro-war side of the debate, idealizes? Do we really think the “collateral damage” in Egypt will rise to the level it did in Iraq? Will whatever replaces Mubarak be any worse than what has replaced Saddam Hussein?
The main difference between the two dictators? One was a U.S. client up until 1990, when the U.S. turned on him. The other was a U.S. client, defended by U.S. politicians, even a week into the revolutionary zeal that overswept his subjects and threatened the stability of his reign. A lot of the loudest American voices calling for blood in 2003 promised that after Shock and Awe, revolutions would follow all throughout the Muslim world. Now that one is happening, they side with the dictator.
Tags: American History, Imperialism, Iran, Iraq, Middle East, War 
“Oddly enough, the arguments offered above applied many times over against the neocons’ pet project of the last decade: The Iraq war.”
No, they don’t. We didn’t have a previous, United Nations-sanctioned war with Egypt. We didn’t have continuously maintained “no-fly” zones over Egypt. We didn’t have military planes being shot down and pilots being killed over Egypt. Mubarak did not openly brag about developing chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons. Mubarak did not prevent UN inspectors from investigating probable development of weapons of mass destruction. Egypt did not host known terrorists in government-funded training camps. Mubarak did not use chemical weapons to slaughter thousands of Kurd villagers. Mubarak did not put dissidents and political opponents into giant shredding machines.
If you cannot see the differences between Mubarak and Hussein or the Egypt of today and the Iraq of 2001, then you are too blind to offer useful political opinions.
Dr. T | Feb 7, 2011 | Reply
I agree with Dr T and would add the difference between Mubarak and Hussein, is that Mubarak is Israel’s thug.
Feizal Mansoor | Feb 8, 2011 | Reply
Dr T:
“United Nations-sanctioned war...”
Are you serious? “UN sanction” is nothing more than a contemptible cover, when available, for doing what the warmongers intend to do anyway.
“We didn’t have continuously maintained “no-fly” zones over Egypt. We didn’t have military planes being shot down and pilots being killed over Egypt.”
You don’t seem to understand just how those two statements fit together, do you?
“Mubarak did not openly brag about developing chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons.”
Mubarak had and has an ally in the United States, the world’s sole remaining superpower. And of course, in Saddam’s case, bragging was quite different from actually having, as US officials likely knew quite well.
“If you cannot see the differences between Mubarak and Hussein or the Egypt of today and the Iraq of 2001...”
One of the most significant differences is the extent to which Iraq was (and is) an artificial conglomeration of religious and ethnic groups, deeply and violently at odds.
Allan Walstad | Feb 8, 2011 | Reply
Dr. T, Mubarak is not as bad as Saddam, and the protesters are not as bad as the U.S. government.
But the UN-sanctioned war on Iraq was a war of aggression, followed up by the US-UN sanctions against Iraq — a crime of atrocious proportions that rises to the moral level of terrorism easily. The no-fly zones were aggressive, too, and how many planes did Saddam actually manage to shoot down throughout the 1990s? Egypt’s regime is a very brutal one, one that has tortured people notoriously — but since it has tortured people at the request of Washington, DC, I guess that’s ok?
It’s true Egypt never claimed to have WMD, and Saddam did not in fact have them either. But so what? The US, France, India and Israel have nuclear weapons. That doesn’t justify violence against their people, in the name of “regime change.”
Anthony Gregory | Feb 8, 2011 | Reply
And let us not forget where Saddam got the gas that he used against the Kurds:
“The provision of chemical precursors from United States companies to Iraq was enabled by a Ronald Reagan administration policy that removed Iraq from the State Department’s list of State Sponsors of Terrorism. Leaked portions of Iraq’s “Full, Final and Complete” disclosure of the sources for its weapons programs shows that thiodiglycol, a substance needed to manufacture mustard gas, was among the chemical precursors provided to Iraq from US companies such as Alcolac International and Phillips...”
J. Buzz | Feb 8, 2011 | Reply
I’m always wary of blanket statements about “neo cons” especially since POTUS Bush often deviated from the “pro-strongman” position you present here:
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/258316/george-w-bush-egypt-jay-nordlinger
Jonathan Bean | Feb 17, 2011 | Reply
Jonathan, I’m talking about actual neocons — a relatively small clique. I don’t consider George W. Bush a neocon. He was just a big-government conservative Republican.
Anthony Gregory | Feb 17, 2011 | Reply