The Metaphors Of The Iraq War

e. At first the analogy had the narrow meaning of pointing out the unprovoked annexation of foreign territory: just as Hitler had invaded Czechoslovakia,

Saddam had swallowed Kuwait, both transgressions against internationally recognized borders. Quickly, however, even during the first Iraq war, the metaphor came to signify the brutality of the Iraqi regime or, rather, the brutality of the Iraqi regime in its occupation of Kuwait. During the second Gulf war, the use of the metaphor became more emphatic: the brutality of the Iraqi regime to the Iraqi population itself and, especially, to ethnic minorities (e.g., the Kurds, the treatment of whom displayed a genocidal character). Moreover, the nature of the international threat posed by Iraq changed.

On the one hand, the global threat associated with Iraq echoes the classical totalitarian aspiration to world domination; on the other, it is the function of a changed security perception after September 11.

The question of Iraq is central to the understanding of current anti-Americanism for two different reasons. As noted, the

Iraq wars are the primary casus belli of the anti-Americans against the foreign policy of the United States. On a deeper level, however, the metaphor of Saddam as Hitler can lead us to a better understanding of what is at stake. For large parts of the

American public, a war against totalitarianism remains just and worthwhile. For large parts of the public in Europe—the continent that incubated the two totalitarianisms that dominated the last century—a preference for appeasement prevails, and this difference turns into anti-Americanism.

However, the willingness to accommodate reprehensible

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84 ANTI-AMERICANISM IN EUROPE regimes is not only a European phenomenon, and clearly significant parts of the American public were opposed to the war. It is as if the judgment on totalitarianism had somehow softened since the collapse of Communism: not that one can find

It is not that anyone mounted much of a positive defense of Saddam Hussein’s regime, but there was clearly reluctance to challenge it: Would it not be more comfortable just to ignore brutal regimes? Not everyone supported a war against Hitler, so it is not surprising to find an appeasement camp with regard to the metaphoric Hitler.

The Iraq wars posed the question of totalitarianism, both in terms of the metaphor of Saddam as Hitler and in terms of the real character of the regime, as will be discussed in this chapter.

However, the wars also revealed the complex relationship of outsiders, so-called world opinion, to totalitarian regimes: though some witnesses can muster the resolve to confront evil, there is always a large appeasement camp with a strong desire to ignore, minimize, or even accommodate Hitler, Saddam, and their ilk. Therefore the historical question of totalitarianism is inextricably related to the contemporary question of moral judgment. Examining the metaphor of Saddam as Hitler allows us to reexamine the judgment on totalitarianism and