LONDON: Emboldened by success in Afghanistan and tired of being trapped in the quagmire over sanctions and weapons inspections in Iraq, the United States has embarked on a plan to rid the world of Saddam Hussein. Ousting Saddam by force is certainly a hazardous enterprise, but the US, after years of hesitation, seems determined to commit whatever resources it takes to finish the job.

There has, of course, been talk of this ever since Saddam invaded Kuwait in 1990, and the real obstacle has not been military but political: a fear of what might happen once he is gone, both inside Iraq and in neighbouring countries. American preparations for an attack on Baghdad do not mean the political problems have gone away.

The big question is who - apart from President Bush - would rule Iraq. The simplest kind of electoral system in Iraq would produce a government dominated by Shias, since they account for 65 per cent of the population. At the very least, the Sunnis (32 per cent) and possibly the Christians (three per cent) would want guaranteed power-sharing in order to protect their interests.

In ethnic terms, Iraq is 75 per cent Arab and 20 per cent Kurdish, with other minorities accounting for five per cent. The Kurdish population stretches over the Iraqi borders into Turkey and Iran, with smaller numbers in Syria and former Soviet republics. Altogether, the Kurds probably number 25 million and form the world’s most important ethnic group without a state. Because of sanctions and the no-fly zone, they have a quasi-state in northern Iraq which would be jeopardised by Saddam’s overthrow. The likeliest solution in a post-Saddam Iraq would be to grant them enough autonomy to dampen their separatist tendencies but not enough to enable them to break away. That is a difficult balance to strike.

The US is looking to the Kurds to help remove Saddam, but they are in no hurry to become Iraq’s equivalent of the Afghan Northern Alliance. The leaders of both main Kurdish parties, the Kurdistan Democratic party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, have said recently that they will not help to topple Saddam unless they know who the next president will be. Massoud Barzani, head of the KDP, insisted: “We are not custom- made revolutionaries. We will never become an orderly in the hands of the US or any other force.”

The most probable military scenario starts with a massive American bombardment of Saddam’s power base - and especially those who protect him, such as the Republican Guard. Once that is under way, the hope is that opposition forces or his own guards will strike the fatal blow. But the US is not going to spend billions removing Saddam just to let some disaffected Republican Guard officer or a member of Saddam’s Tikriti clan proclaim himself president.

The vast numbers of ground troops reportedly assigned to the Iraqi offensive are probably not intended to take part in the main battle. More likely, they will move into the vacuum as soon as Saddam has gone to prevent the “wrong” people from seizing power. While the “wrong” people are easily recognized, the “right” people are less easy to spot.

Reports in several Arab newspapers say the US has already begun a selection process, working through a list of 55 exiled Iraqi officers. It is doubtful whether such a la list exists, but informal soundings are certainly taking place. As in Afghanistan, candidates with useful experience and good connections tend to be unsavoury characters. Almost any senior military figure who served under Saddam has blood on his hands, so unless care is taken the new cabinet could turn out to be a collection of war criminals.

The lack of an obvious successor means that, as in Afghanistan, a new government would be likely to be installed in two stages, starting with a transitional period during which a long-term leader may possibly emerge. Four men widely tipped to play a key role in this are Ahmed Chalabi, Nizar al-Khazraji, Najib Salihi and Adnan Pachachi.

Of these, Dr Chalabi, head of the Iraqi National Congress, is the best known in the west. He is a charismatic figure, loved and hated in equal measure by different factions of the US administration, and is certainly not an American yes-man. General Khazraji, formerly Saddam’s chief of staff, fled to the west in 1996. A smaller Kurdish group has sought to have him prosecuted for war crimes. Brigadier Salihi is a more junior military figure, but increasingly popular. He has avoided giving the impression of power-hungriness, and at conferences in the US has argued that the military should not be directly engaged in politics.—Dawn/The Guardian News Service.