In 1934, Adolf Hitler usurped power in Germany and immediately began flaunting military regulations set by the Treaty of Versailles after WWI. He secured his own power by urging the end of elections, taking over every facet of the government, introducing a police state and–paranoid to the extreme–killed many of his own people in the process. Soon thereafter, he aggressively went to war with much of Europe, terrorizing lands until a global coalition put a stop to it.

In 1979, Saddam Hussein usurped power in Iraq in a way eerily similar, having already set up a police state in his post as vice president–a post taken after a 1968 revolution. He threw out the president, purged his own government and began killing his own people (the northern Kurds) with chemical weapons. Soon thereafter, he aggressively launched an unsuccessful war with Iran, annexed Kuwait and terrorized much of the Middle East until a global coalition put a stop to it.

Of course, Hitler committed suicide after his quest for domination failed.

With Saddam, the world didn’t have such luck.

Saddam Hussein is the Hitler of the modern Middle East. It’s on a smaller scale, to be certain–hardly any coalition soldiers’ lives were lost in driving his armed forces out of Kuwait. His genocide of the Kurds does not approach the scale of the Holocaust. but he has shown he will operate with the same Machiavellian principles as Hitler. He’s a source of pride to many Middle Eastern Arabs because he stands up to the West; of course, many who feel this pride do not have to live under his reign of terror.

Little of this is contested. The man has murdered thousands of his own people, used chemical weapons to quash potential rebellions, put women and children at sites he knew would be bombed in an effort to make the West look evil and he even lured his own sons-in-law back to Iraq after their defection and had them killed. The Iraqi people do not have a choice of governments and questioning his legitimacy leads to a visit from his secret police.

Dissidents in Iraq are not likely to overthrow Saddam and his totalitarian infrastructure on their own; outside help will be necessary.

But why should we overthrow Saddam? After all, it’s not as if we did not have opportunities before. We could have marched into Baghdad in 1991; we could have helped Kurdish rebels in 1995. We did not, many believe, out of fear that the heterogeneous Iraqi people would split into several unstable states–instead of dealing with one power-hungry dictator in Iraq, the world would have to deal with three or four.

Of course, that philosophy does not take into account Hussein’s obsessive pursuit of weapons of mass destruction, weapons that are not only extremely dangerous but also exclusively offensive in nature. Given his history of shortsighted decision-making, the prospect of their use becomes more a question of “when” than “whether.” On top of this, there is evidence of his government’s involvement in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11–proof that lasting peace with the dictator is not in his interest.

The time has come for his overthrow.

We should not engage in the war with the goal of mere self-interest for America; this goal is what put Saddam in power in the first place and kept him there even after he had invaded Kuwait and committed genocide against his own people.
Perhaps this can be the effort that ushers in a new era of American foreign policy. A policy committed to the protection of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness everywhere–three ends that Hussein has worked to destroy rather than preserve.

Many would object, saying this is American meddling and hegemonic behavior, but I doubt the Iraqi people would. Who can object to the overthrow of a dictator and establishment of government by consent, particularly when this overthrow comes only in the form of aid to an already-established group of rebels? American meddling was helping Saddam’s regime gain power in the first place in 1968; bringing liberty to millions is benevolence.

Maybe that is too much to expect from America, and undoubtedly the actual policy of fighting dictatorship and oppression would be difficult and complicated. But if America and the Free World truly want to fight state-sponsored terrorism, they should begin by actively pushing democracy wherever oppressive governments harm the very ends they are established to protect.

Saddam Hussein’s Iraq seems a good place to start.

Matt Lynch ([email protected]) is a junior majoring in English and political science.