Once again, as if on cue, he has been trotted out to boost the global military and diplomatic agenda of the new world order. If Saddam Hussein did not exist, we would have to invent him. He is the linchpin of American policy in the Mideast. If you're going to rally public support behind a massive, costly, perpetual U.S. military presence on the other side of the planet, all that incendiary blather about Saddam as Satan is indispensable. But the great unwashed who will be called upon to sacrifice blood and treasure for this worthy crusade must be made to understand that though Hussein is evil, he is a necessary evil.
Nothing destroys an alliance like the disappearance of the enemy.
Saddam is able to manage this because he is a rapacious dictator who runs a police state. The security and independence of the region is a vital U.S. interest. But then get this. During the Reagan-Bush years, Iraq became Washington's second biggest trading partner in the Arab world. As top Soviet defector Anatoliy Golitsyn observed at the time, the huge Soviet military presence, the arrival of Makashov, the visit to Iraq by Yevgeny Primakov, and the visit to Moscow by Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz, all indicated Soviet connivance and participation in the invasion of Kuwait.