30 Antiwar Thinkers on How to Deal With Saddam

From The Guardian:

Julian Barnes
...I decline to buy the sudden idea of a "humanitarian war" when it will be conducted on current American guidelines: keep US casualties below the level of an average supermarket-mall massacre, bomb from high altitude, road-test the latest hardware, and oops, sorry about that wedding party which just went up in smoke. If, on the other hand, we are now announcing a new and truly ethical foreign policy, in which filthy oppressors worldwide are to be removed in order of filth, I would say that this should be done only with a very high majority vote in the UN, and that former - and current - imperial powers should be extremely cautious in their use of hectoring cant. Those who are anti-war have not somehow been cornered by the question, So, peaceniks, what would you do now? It's quite legitimate to answer, well, we wouldn't be here now, because we wouldn't have started from there then. Instead, a question in return. Saddam disarms voluntarily: do we then invade on humanitarian grounds?

Noam Chomsky
...Saddam Hussein is not the only monster supported by the present incumbents in Washington until he did something contrary to their interests. There's a long list that they supported right to the end of their bloody rule - Marcos, Duvalier, and many others, some of them as vicious and brutal as Saddam, and running tyrannies that compare well with his: Ceausescu, for example. They were overthrown internally, despite US support for them. That's been prevented within Iraq by the murderous sanctions regime, which has devastated the population while strengthening Saddam, and forcing the population to become hopelessly reliant on him for survival.

Solution? Give Iraqis a chance to survive, and there's every reason to believe that they'll get rid of him the way that others have. Meanwhile, strengthen measures to ensure that Saddam, or some replacement, doesn't develop significant military capacity. Not a very serious problem right now, since as is well known, Iraq is militarily and economically the weakest country in the region, but it could be down the road, and in his hands, it would be likely, even without the US and UK to supply him.

Kamil Mahdi
...The way out of the present impasse is:

1 Maintain weapons inspections to allay western concerns.

2 Introduce human-rights monitors.

3 Lift the economic blockade and demand professionalism and transparency in economic affairs under UN monitoring.

4 Implement Resolution 688, including an end to repression.

5 Genuinely support Iraqis, not by imposing an agenda and stooges on the opposition.

6 Start a process of truth and reconciliation.

7 Relieve debt and remove reparation to enhance moves toward democracy.

8 Move towards UN-supervised elections after a time.

9 Curb Ariel Sharon and move immediately towards a just Middle East peace under resolution 242, with recognition of Palestinian rights.