By Adel Darwish

The Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, once again, defied the military might of the United States and Great Britain the, former colonial power in Iraq. As he appeared on television screens addressing the Iraqi people and praying for the martyrs, the ironies were all evident. We have seen it before: Saddam crawling from under the rubble to wave the flag of defiance and claim victory in the ' mother of all battles'.

The question asked now as asked then in 1991, could the Saddam be toppled? We have seen it before: Saddam crawling from under the rubble to wave the flag of defiance and claim victory in the ' mother of all battles.'

Once again, the same question was raised like in 1991: could the Saddam be toppled?

And the answer now as it was then: Not likely, according to a top Gulf Arab official pointing at cartoon in a local paper with the old and ageing 'mother of all battles' is introducing her younger daughter, ' the mistress of all battles', she had a striking resemblance to Monica Lewinsky, seductively holding a cigar shaped like cruise missile. ''It is wag the dog scenario,'' said the diplomat referring to the film where an American president, besieged by a sex scandal starts a war to divert attention. '' But the people of this region are seeking rather a well constructed strategy to topple Saddam,''

Military coup is ruled out by most experts. The Republican Guards elite units are there to fend off organised attacks from other army units. The Republican guards are accountable to the presidential palace not to the ministry of Defence. Each unit, no matter how small it is, has a Baath party commissar.

All other means to topple Saddam seemed to fail. For the past eight years draconian sanctions authorised by the United Nations have deprived Iraq of $120bn in oil revenue income and set the country back decades. Yet after all this containment - and three US military strikes - getting rid of Mr Saddam by pounding the country is more of a wishful thinking on the part of Washington than a probability.

Both President Clinton and Prime Minister Tony Blair - nicknamed Bill's poodle in the Arab press, have been open in declaring their wish for a new regime in Baghdad. In reality, no Middle East expert or Arab official believes this aim to be achievable.

Saddam maintains power by manipulating and adjusting to a number of domestic factors not military structure alone, as mistakenly thought in the west

Since Saddam's power base is civilian, a growing number of Western diplomats at the United Nations, to call for a change of strategy and not rely on military strikes creating condition for a military coup or a popular uprising. Some even suggest lifting the sanctions.

While the sanctions did little to stop Saddam re-building his arsenal, it strengthened his regime rather than weakening it. Destroying Iraq's economy impoverished a middle-class that might have formed the basis of an organised opposition, spanning Iraq's ethnic and sectarian map, as it was the case from the 1940's to the 1980s including Communists, liberals and Arab nationalists, even disaffected former Baath party members. The effect of sanctions was to drive them into exile and weakened their organisational structure.

Some UN diplomats argue that the chances of toppling Mr Saddam would increase if sanctions were to be lifted, since the rebuilding of Iraq's economy would place enormous strain on the regime and open the way for the participation of the educated middle classes and Westernised technocrat in the work. It would also prevent Saddam from blaming the country's woes on the west since he succeeded in deflecting criticism at home for Iraq's fate.

Saddam continue to take advantage of the incoherence of America lead western policy. The last attacks only served to increase his popularity in the region and the Muslim world and strengthened his grip on power.

His speech yesterday thanking his people for defeating the '' aggression by the infidels'' and living up to the expectation of '' your leader, your guide and your brother Saddam Hussein,'' emphasises the personality cult that marked his rule and gives him domestic strength.

Iraqi people see the leader looking down on them from giant portraits. In the countryside he is pictured as a farmer, in factory he is depicted as a labourer and in the barracks he is in his military fatigue. A recent joke is that the dilemma facing Baath party commissar in a newly opened gynaecology clinic is how to portray the great leader?

But Saddam always has the last laugh since he came to power in 1979.

This type of personality cult symbols is part of a tabloid culture directed at the simple masses that might be the cannon fodder in any uprising.

Unlike western educated middle classes whose aspiration to liberal style democracy could lead them to dissent - and are dealt with ruthlessly in the few times they did so-, the vast majority of Iraqi masses are not interested in politics. Thus they never had a first hand experience of Saddam's machine of oppression; they see America and Britain as the oppressor and the aggressor, thanks to tactics like Operation Desert Fox.

Baath party penetrates society so deeply, with commissars in schools and universities, preaching loyalty to Saddam and his radical pan-Arabism

The source of Saddam domestic security is a ruthlessly efficient civilian apparatus modelled on former Eastern Block internal security organisations.

Their centralised command run by a largely Sunni Moslem inner circle drawn mostly from the Iraqi president's relatives and members of his clan' the Takriti'. His younger son, Qusay, is the key figure in supervising the security forces. The older is the pathologically homicidal Uday, who is in charge of propaganda, youth organisations and the smuggling network, that has given Saddam a limited but essential source of income, which is used, as well as vast hidden assets all over the world, to bribe the clan.and ensure its support. This inner circles is subjected to continuous purges with any hint of conspiracy is met with violent reprisal, putting an end to western wishful thinking of an inner circle coup

The opposition in exile, - given $97 m by President Clinton and supported by the British Foreign Office comprising 70 odd different groups divided, weak and discredited inside Iraq. There is a saying that ''when two of them are plotting, there is always a third running to tell Saddam.''

The Kurds in the North have their own agenda, mainly a homeland called Kurdistan- this is vehemently opposed by Turkey, Iran and Syria. The Shia in the south are backed by Iran thus looked upon suspiciously by Arabs like Saudi Arabia and by the West.