Saddam Hussein

Saddam Hussein is presented as a case through which Noam Chomsky examines the reversals of American policy: the United States and the United Kingdom supported him during the years of his worst atrocities, including the gassing of Kurds, yet he later became an example of a former ally designated a terrorist after disobeying American orders. The account uses this history to challenge the consistency of official distinctions between allies, enemies, and terrorism.

A Supported Ally During Atrocities

Chomsky recalls that U.S. policy toward Iraq had devastated Iraqi society over the preceding decade while strengthening Saddam Hussein’s power. In the account, this was not simply a matter of Washington tolerating his rule from afar: Saddam had received substantial U.S. support while committing grave abuses, among them the 1988 gassing of Kurds. Chomsky contrasts Western audiences’ preference for a different account of Iraq with the awareness of people in the Middle East, for whom the history of American support was consequential.

The support is placed within a broader pattern of U.S. relations with authoritarian governments. Chomsky notes that, during the 1980s, the United States and the United Kingdom gave substantial backing to Saddam, who was more secular than some other regional actors but belonged to the same broad Islamic side of the so-called clash. The emphasis is on timing: backing continued during the period of his worst atrocities, including the attack on the Kurds, and afterward. The record therefore complicates any account that treats U.S. policy as a consistent response to brutality.

Ally, Enemy, and the Label of Terrorism

Saddam’s changing status also serves as an example of how the category of terrorist can shift with political alignment. Chomsky argues that governments once chosen as friends and allies may later be classified as terrorists when they disobey American orders; Saddam is one of his examples. The point is not that the text equates every abuse or every political relationship, but that the label cannot be understood apart from the power relations that govern its application.

This contrast informs Chomsky’s criticism of demands that citizens in Arab countries remove terrorists or governments that support them. He says it is reasonable to expect citizens not to elect terrorists to high office or reward them, but rejects the implication that people living under harsh regimes supported by Western powers bear a responsibility their more privileged counterparts fail to exercise themselves. His reference to Saddam makes the comparison concrete: Western governments, too, have supported leaders who committed terrorist crimes or assisted terrorism, and a former ally may be recast as a terrorist after defying Washington.

Policy, Power, and the Wider Argument

The account places Saddam within a wider discussion of American power rather than developing a personal biography or a complete history of his rule. Chomsky’s principal concern is the political structure in which military support, strategic interests, and public descriptions of violence can coexist. In this framework, Saddam’s treatment is evidence of a distinction between the abuses of an ally and those of an adversary—not because the former are absent, but because they may be obscured or treated differently while the alliance holds.

That argument also appears in Chomsky’s discussion of official policy after the September 11 attacks. He describes the Bush administration as seeking to use the crisis to advance militarization and other domestic priorities, while the wider campaign against terrorism could reinforce U.S. military dominance. Saddam’s history provides a warning against taking the category of enemy as a neutral description: the same political actor can move from supported partner to condemned adversary, while the underlying record of violence remains part of the account that public rhetoric may leave out.

Limits of the Portrait

The book’s references establish a political role for Saddam, not an intimate character portrait. They identify his U.S. and British backing, his atrocities, the gassing of Kurds in 1988, and his later use as an example of a former ally designated a terrorist. They do not narrate his private life, motives, or personal transformation. His significance here lies in the contradiction his case makes visible: support for a ruler during grave abuses can be followed by condemnation when the ruler becomes disobedient, exposing the dependence of official labels on changing relations of power.