"Current U.S. policy will never lead to Saddam’s downfall, because it targets only the tyrant, and not the equally threatening and violent institution of tyranny in Iraq," argues Wurmser in his new book Tyranny’s Ally: America’s Failure to Defeat Saddam Hussein, (AEI Press; February 22, 1999, $29.95 cloth; $14.95 paper; 180 pages) He contends that only a strategy of insurgency to remove Saddam will end in U.S. victory.

In Tyranny’s Ally, Wurmser traces Saddam’s revival to mid-1995 when the United States suddenly withdrew support from the Iraqi National Congress, an insurgent group that had endangered and nearly terminated Saddam’s regime. U.S. policymakers began covertly backing a coup rather than an insurgency. By 1998, U.S. policy on Iraq was in free fall, and Saddam had regained the upper hand.

Wurmser attributes the policy shift to the ill-conceived notion that radical statism would preserve stability and assert our anti-imperialist credentials by displaying sensitivity to the most antirevolutionary sentiments in the Arab world. He warns that this flawed thinking encourages the very radicalism that has led elsewhere in the world to the deadliest century in human history.

Current U.S policy plays into the hands of modern Arab leaders who espouse the brutal ideologies that informed communism, fascism, and other totalitarian movements. "U.S. policymakers’ choices in Iraq disgrace and undermine U.S. victory in the cold war and are resulting in defeat," concludes Wurmser.

About David Wurmser, author of
TYRANNY’S ALLY

David Wurmser is a research fellow and director of the Middle East studies program at the American Enterprise Institute. Before assuming this position, Mr. Wurmser served as the director of the Research in Strategy and Politics program of the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies in Washington, DC. From 1994 to 1996, Mr. Wurmser was director of institutional grants at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. From 1988 to 1994, he was project officer at the United States Institute of Peace.

Mr. Wurmser is also the author of a study on Israel’s army, Why Israel Wins Battles but Loses the Peace (Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies, April 1998), and another study on Iraq, Coping with Crumbling States (Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies, November 1996). He has written numerous articles for the Wall Street Journal, Washington Times, SAIS Review, and Middle East Quarterly.

Mr. Wurmser received his Ph.D., master’s degree, and bachelor’s degree from the Johns Hopkins University.

The author is available for interview. Please contact Veronique Rodman at 202.862.4871.

Questions for David Wurmser, author of
TYRANNY’S ALLY

1. We have been dealing with Saddam for eight years. Can’t we find an officer in Iraq who will assassinate him or send someone in to get him?
2. If our persistent efforts to organize a coup have failed, why do we keep coming back to the same policy?
3. Can we just live with Saddam keeping him in box, so to speak?
4. If Saddam cannot be contained, what options do we have but to resign ourselves to a slow defeat or hope that some unexpected event might work to our advantage?
5. Why haven’t we given insurgency a serious chance? Why do U.S. policymakers dismiss it and even fear it?
6. The opponents of the insurgency option say that the opposition in Iraq is hopelessly divided. Why are you so certain that it is a viable strategy?
7. Saddam has very dangerous forces. Wouldn’t sending a rag-tag insurgency up against those forces just result in many fatalities—and, ultimately, defeat?
8. How would an insurgency be funded? Tell me about ideas such as the Iraqi Liberation Act and liberated oil fields.
9. If an insurgency succeeds and Saddam’s defeat is at hand, isn’t there a danger that he might use some of his unconventional weaponry against Israel or other regional friends?
10. Should Americans rest assured that the community of experts handling their foreign policy in the Middle East is on top of things?