Cakewalk

There was little action on the TV screen. And yet for over an hour the other night I could not take my eyes off CNN’s live coverage of Iraqis trying to pull down a statue of Saddam Hussein. Since the start of the war we’ve seen other statues of Saddam toppled or destroyed. But this statue, inaugurated only last year to mark Saddam’s birthday, was right in his nation’s capital, in Baghdad’s Al-Fardus or Paradise Square.

By the time an American armored recovery vehicle rolled into view at around 10:30 p.m. our time, everyone in our office was glued to TV sets.

The symbolism was not lost to the world: Iraqis hammering away at the statue’s pedestal, then tying a noose around the statue’s neck to pull it down. But they had to call in the tank recovery vehicle, and it took American muscle to finally bring down the statue.

What followed afterward brought me back to February 1986, when Filipinos, in giddy euphoria over the departure of the Marcoses, entered Malacañang and destroyed portraits of Ferdinand and Imelda.

The people of Baghdad pummeled Saddam’s fallen statue with anything they could lay their hands on, then rode on the severed head as it was pulled around the park.

The images were priceless for the Bush administration. Those lusty cheers in Baghdad, even the jubilant looting, were clear manifestations of liberation from fear. In that sense the coalition’s "Operation Iraqi Freedom" has lived up to its name. Even if the coalition fails to find a single weapon of mass destruction in Iraq, those images of Iraqis ecstatic over their newfound freedom would help legitimize what many see as an unjust war.

It was vindication for Bush. Watching Wednesday’s events in Baghdad and other places in Iraq, surely there were exclamations of surprise in certain capitals: Gee, the Iraqis did need liberating!

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And what a cakewalk (in Gulf War II lingo) it was for the coalition. There we were still waiting for the Battle for Baghdad to start, for Saddam’s shock troops to "slaughter" the Americans, as promised by his information minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf.

Suddenly everyone was gone, Sahaf did not report for work and Iraqi TV went off the air. Baghdad’s fall came so quickly that many in the Arab Street were openly disappointed.

Is Saddam dead or alive? One exiled Iraqi opposition leader said yesterday Saddam and his son Qusay had fled to Baqubah, a city northeast of Baghdad. For a definitive answer, forensic experts may have to sift through that huge pile of rubble in Baghdad’s al-Mansour neighborhood for DNA samples of anyone incinerated by those four "bunker buster" bombs made in USA. Or else search every building, bunker or tunnel in Saddam’s hometown of Tikrit, where he might have sought refuge.

Even if Saddam were alive, however, he has lost his capital, his government and his stranglehold on his oppressed people.

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The non-Battle for Baghdad was so easy that the royal dynasties and other dictatorships in the Arab world must now be asking the inevitable question: Who’s next?

For all his ghastly brutality, Saddam Hussein was regarded by many Arabs as a symbol of defiance against evil America. He mocked the Bush administration’s seeming obsession with him, and treated the world to election spectacles where he garnered 100 percent of the vote — proof of how much his people loved him. His ignominious defeat can be seen as a manifestation of Arab weakness, and the coalition must be careful not to rub this in.

For starters, American commanders must make it clear to their troops that they are in Iraq as liberators, not conquerors, so will they please stow all those Stars and Stripes in their backpacks until they’re safely headed home in their aircraft carriers.

The sight of Saddam’s statue in Baghdad draped with an American flag can only fire up anxiety and resentment in the Arab world. In the coming days the world will watch out for similar indications of what many suspect are the true American designs in the Middle East.

Not that the Bush administration’s ultimate goal in the region is a complete unknown. There have been several in-depth articles about the beliefs and objectives that led to Operation Iraqi Freedom.

The way events are unfolding, US President George W. Bush may be on his way to accomplishing his broader mission in this war: not just to get rid of Saddam and his weapons of mass destruction (and consequently get hold of his oil), but to sow the seeds of democracy in the hopes that it will spread across the Middle East. In so doing, Bush hopes to weaken various forms of extremism that now pose the greatest threats to the free world, particularly the United States.

Is this good or bad for the world? For people like Britain’s Tony Blair, who love democracy and are not insecure about American military, political and cultural domination, it’s good. For the rest of the world, Washington will have to give constant reassurance that American hegemony is benign and not deliberately imposed.

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Saddam and sons may still be alive, and like Osama bin Laden may still create trouble for the Americans and their allies. But even Iraq’s representative to the United Nations, Mohammed al-Douri, has already conceded, "The game is over."

Washington has been careful to point out that the war isn’t over, that there are fierce battles ahead and more lives could be lost. The coalition acknowledges that the war has killed hundreds of their troops and thousands of Iraqis.

In the eyes of much of the world, however, all that’s left are mopping-up operations. The Americans once again reign supreme. They have won militarily and have, for now, won the gratitude of many people in Iraq.

Now the concern of many is whether this victory will institutionalize pre-emptive strikes on enemies of the United States. Will other countries – Russia for example – apply the same doctrine to deal with national security threats?

And since this war was waged without the backing of the United Nations, the fear is that the world has not seen the last of American unilateral military action. Especially if battles are as easy to win as the one for Baghdad.