The Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein has outlived another American administration. 

A new dministration, headed by George Bush the younger, is coming in, bringing with it many old, familiar faces from 10 years ago. Down memory lane in Kuwait at the end of February, George Bush the father, sat next to  Emir of Kuwait Sheikh Jaber Al-Sabbah  enjoying lunch - even though broccoli was on the menu and among friends like Margraet Thatcher, John Major, Carlos Menem and a bunch of other former world leaders, who were Kuwait's allies in  1991 when they believed, or ate least gave the impression they believed, the had defeated Saddam Hussein.

A decade on, only Saddam renains at the cutting edge of international politics turning a deaf ear to American and British aircraft fighters screaming over Baghdad. The Iraqi leader laughed off an invitation by former president Bush to '' come down and see for himself self'' made as Mr Bush addressed cheering Kuwaitis while their armour, joined by American and British tanks held maneuvers few yards away from the borders with Iraq.
'' No thanks,'' responded Saddam, '' you are yesterday's man, I will talk to your son.''

Meanwhile President  Bush the son, in association with ,Britain came up with the concept of ' Smart sanctions' in an attempt to ' officially' elevate the suffering of Iraqi people . In reality it is another - almost futile- attempt fulfill the father's dream of unseating the ' butcher of Baghdad '. ' Smart' Sanctions- the expression leaves a hollow laughter in ears already deafened by past boasting of 'smart bombs', the very devices that, by the Pentagon's own admission, missedtheir target one out of four times. And that unnerving word 'smart'- doesn't its use imply we have just had 10 years of  'stupid sanctions'?

Former prime Minister Mrs. Thatcher, being the icing on the cake of Kuwait's double celebration of the national day- 40 years independence from British rule- and the 10th anniversary of liberation from Saddam's occupation, stormed  the British Embassy garden party after the Emir's lunch. It could be the effect of the champagne or the sun, or a cocktail of the two - with a dash of history- that resulted in issuing a diatribe to the effect that had she been in power at the conclusion of the Gulf war, she wouldn't have permitted George Bush, the father, to go wobbly and take his eyes off the target. She would have marched the troops right on to Baghdad to capture the butcher, she said.
After planting a tree in the garden of the embassy - which unlike the America one, still remains recognisable as an embassy -, former Prime Minister Major - another leader Saddam watched come and go- quickly revoked Mrs. Thatcher's 'Fatwa' saying that the coalition had no legal mandate to occupy Iraq. The UN only authorised the liberation of Kuwait, not the ousting of Saddam no matter desirable by many that would have been, Mr Major asserted. 

Equally they have no mandate to impose the no-fly-zone to the south, a French journalist standing at the back was quick to point out to a British diplomat who  poured more champagne into his glass and talked about the weather.

It was the no fly zone- a Five years old point of friction - that gave the new Bush administration an excuse to, noisily, declare a new policy hoping to scare Saddam off. American aircraft hit Iraqi radar installations on the outskirts of the capital Baghdad - which is outside the no-fly-zone, just one week before a grand tour of America's Middle Eastern allied nations  by  secretary of Sate Colin Powell - another one who failed to unseat Saddam in his previous military role as the boss of the biggest army in the world, a coalition of 28 nations when it waged war against Saddam. Now re-incarnated as the world's top diplomat, Mr Powell is trying a smarter ways of getting rid of the old foe.

Loud whispers from the corridors of power in Washington suggest, to the annoyance of Mr Powell, that  old and ailing vice president Dick Cheney, who was defence secretary in the administration of Bush the father, hoping to iron-out the unfinished business of  1991. He was behind the air-raid, although British Prime Minister Tony Blair wanted to take the credit for devising them.

Mr Powell heard a very different tune when he listened to wiser voices as he tried to peddle his 'smart' sanctions plan in Cairo, Amman and Riyadh.

With the  bombing of radar sites near Baghdad and the Pentagon admission that their 'smart' satellite-guided weapons missed 17 of the 25  targets, Saddam's profile reached an all time high on Arab streets. 

Opinions were divided. The situation meant, come advised, that a ten-year policy has by now run its course, Mr Powell was told, It should be replaced.

It could be, others argued, that the  American and - token - British bombing on 16 0February  was the beginning of something new, bigger and better. However, America's friends in the region, who are aldo becoming over embarrassed by the way Saddam spits them and the US in the eye, see  no sign, as yet, of what the Anglo-American plan might be.

In Jordan, where he held talks with King Abdallah, Mr Powell made it clear that solving the Israeli Palestinian issue was not an American priority - unless the two parties came back with some firm commitment- but dealing with Saddam and saving the Iraqi people from both his dictatorship and the crippling sanctions was clearly top of the US secretary of state's list of things to do.

There was anticipation in the air as British and other western reporters  gathered  at the garden of the massive newly constructed massive American Embassy complex, waiting for the arrival of Mr Powell, but it was misplaced.

He came, made some tribute to the fallen heroes, applauded George Bush the father's sentimental speech, laid a wreath at the war memorial for Americans who fell during the liberation of Kuwait, and went without Saying a word to the waiting media. Could his plan, to overthrow Saddam be that tight that no one could ' read his lips '? Or could it be that he had no plans at all.?
 
In its smart way,  America is now  calling for sanctions on Iraq to be eased. Sanctions could be lifted on up to 1,600 contracts for the sale of civilian goods to Iraq. This could even be extended to some items that could be used for military purposes. 

After Kuwait, Mr Powell headed to Damascus in  an attempt to persuade the young President Bashar Assad to turn off a pipeline through which Saddam has been smuggling oil. At present, Saddam earns about $1 billion annually from the smuggling of oil. Through pipes via Syria, trucks via Turkey and Jordan and by barges huddled in the Iranian territorial water away from the watchful eye of the US navy. 

Cynics in the Middle East anticipated that the young Assad would be a chip of the old block. ''Of course we will turn off'' he would say to the American guest, they suggested, then turn the pipes on again once Mr Powell's plane is out of Syria's air space.  

Neverthless, Mr Powell still had a go, since the success of his 'smart' sanctions depends so heavily on persuading Iraq's neighbours, Syria, Turkey, Iran and Jordan - the Kuwaities need no persuasion- to tighten their borders crossing with Iraq and stop the smuggling of all materials that helps Saddam build his weapons of Mass destruction - now UN inspectors are out thanks to another folly of the Clinton administration.  

Saddam's earning from smuggled oil sales  need not be cycled through a UN escrow account. Consequently, none of it goes to compensate victims of the Gulf war, and none can be used to buy food and medicine for his people. Saddam can spend all the earnings from smuggled oil on his programs for chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons, on the missiles to deliver them, and on his gaudy palaces.      

Mr Powell also wants to tighten the screening for weapons measures at Iraq's borders. Past experience suggests that Saddam will find ways to import all the items he needs for his weapons of mass destruction. Hence the success of Mr Powell's plan depends 100% on the cooperation of Iraq's neighbours as well as persuading the regime in Iraq to cooperate. Only the most incorrigible optimist would buy such plan.  

Firstly we must consider the charcter. Given that an Iraqi delegation at the United Nations has said inspectors will not be allowed to return under any condition, what could possibly make him change his mind?

Second the Syrians will not help America for love. America has a little leverage- if any- over Syria and little carrot it could offer as well since the Congress is unlikely to agree to the size of aid-package needed to be given to President Assad to start reading from an American script.

Meanwhile, Turkey is either unable or unwilling to stop the smuggling of oil from Iraq. All happens through Kurdistan where the Kurds have a good working  deal with Saddam as they never had it so good in their history. They have a de facto self rule, Saddam, for the first time since the Baath ruled Iraq in 1968, is not terrorising them; and they are economically prosperous thanks to massive revenue from smuggling. The profits are shared on the other side of the borders with Turkey.

At the same time America has no influence over Iran and the Iranians have no desire to help America or cut a good source of revenue for their southern and western shores communities. Such extra income elevates the burden that otherwise would have to be met by  Teheran. Meanwhile Saddam is no  threat to them while he is making the right kind of noise, against Israel and against America.

For those who continue to nurture the hope that some form of uprising lead by some form of Iraqi opposition will unseat Saddam. Forget it. The Iraqis are so impoverished and so weakened by Saddam and by the sanctions to even think - let alone to act- against their leader.

Saddam has his officials decry the injustice of the UN sanctions, but deep in his heart, he nose that the sanction gives him more control - through distributing food and medicine. -If he did care about the welfare of Iraqis, he would not have refused to spend $4 billion earned under the UN's oil-for-food program on food and medicine for Iraqi civilians, instead leaving it untouched on the pretence os som lofty principle. 

 Iraq's neighbors have a single worldly criterion for appraising US policy. They want to know if Washington will liberate Iraqis from their tormentor. If not - if the new Bush administration is going to leave Saddam in power with his Sarin gas, his anthrax spores, and his nuclear devices - then the neighbors don't want to bear the brunt of his rage after the Americans poke him in the eye.

Meanwhile the policy of patrolling the South no-fly zone, is turning out to help and aid Saddam politically more than the people it was designed to help in the first place.

Such policy was to stop Saddam using fixed- wing aircraft to suppress his people. As it happened, he doesn't need such aircraft to do the job as he has other means at his disposal to terrorise the Shia population in the south while he made a deal with Kurds in the north.

With every bomb dropped on Saddam - and only one in four would hit a target, Saddam's popularity sours and his allies in France, Russia and China ( who updated his radar systems with fiber optics and modern technology in breech of UN sanctions) shout louder and more vociferously for sanctions to be lifted.

Additionally, Saddam cuts an increasinglu impressive figuer with millions of Arabs by claiming to be a 21st-century Salahaeldine with his efforts repulses Christian crusaders and vows to liberate Palestine from the Jews.

He has already invited Yasser Arafat and his Palestinian Authority to relocate in Baghdad. The sweetener: $1 billion (including $10,000 to the family of each Palestinian killed in the Intifada). Saddam didn't have to remind Arafat it was Ariel Sharon's invasion of Lebanon in 1982 that forced him out of Beirut the following year.

However Of $ 1 billion promissed to Mr Arafat by Arab Gulf nations only $400,000 have been received.
 
Mr Arafat is smart enough to avoid his 1990  mistake when he embraced  Saddam after his invasion of Kuwait, but the latter's meddling in such affairs could have some dire consequences. With General AreilSharon - who is famed for his Military toughness rather than his smart statesmanship - is now in power, there are  Israeli powers that are openly discussing the possibility of reoccupying the former occupied territories ceded to the Palestinian Authority. And who is to stop them?

Saddam claims to have 1 million 'volunteers signed up for the campaign to liberate Palestine. Neighboring Jordan, - which  gets all its oil from Iraq, and two thirds of its  population are  Palestinian, is sandwiched between Iraq and Israel.

The scenarion recalls May 1967 when the late Egyptian autocratic leader Colonel  Gamal Abdel Nasser rattled his sabers moving some 100,000 troops into the Sinai desert. Colonel Nasser had no intention of invading Israel, but the Israelis took no chance and launched the Six Day War the consequences of which are now the basis for most of the Middle East problems.

Both Israel's General Sharon and Iraq's Saddam Hussein have proved capable of writing some mad scenarios of their own, without giving due consideration to possible outcome. 
Gen Shron with no record as a statesman or political leader, he might hope to then re-emerge as a military hero who cleaned Saddam's clock and finished the 1991 Gulf War with the Iraqi dictator's demise.
Meanwhile, as Colonel Nasser Did, Saddam still believes he can persuade Arabs that defeat could be called victory. Saddam, dreams of such scenario to inherit the mantle - Colonel Nasser's 1967 military defeat only made him more popular among Arabs. Like Colonel Nasser before them, both men long to be herors. It makes the prevailing situation both unpredictable and dangerous, a nightmare scenario, not just for America, but for the whole world.