It all started with "Regime Change", a slogan that has brought unparalleled misery to the great civilization of the Tigris and Euphrates valley, a land seeped in history and legend of unparalleled grandeur and glory, stretching back thousands of years.

A dictator ruled Baghdad. The British and Americans felt he was a major threat to peace and security, butchering his own people, asserting his claim of suzerenity over Kuwait and showing unabashed hostility towards his other neighbors. Sitting over billions of barrels of oil desperately needed by an energy-hungry world, his erratic policies could damage the global economic balance. So they decided that the only solution in the interest of the Iraqi people themselves, and of the world at large, was to change the regime in Baghdad. This plan of the Americans and the British was vehemently opposed by the Germans and the French. Sounds familiar? 2003? Saddam?

Not at all. The year was 1963, the month February, exactly 40 years ago. The dictator was Abdul Karim Kassem. Since the overthrow of the pro-West Hashemite monarchy the country had indeed been in turmoil. General Kassim had emerged as the strongman of the revolution. And this was the regime the British and the Americans had resolved to remove, replacing it with a government of their choosing. Despite the strong objection of their close allies in Paris and Bonn, London and Washington went ahead.

General Kassem was overthrown. A Baathist regime was duly installed in Baghdad, one of whose emerging stars was a young firebrand named Saddam Hussain. And what a regime that turned out to be! It promptly started by slaughtering thousands of its own citizens. It then went on to exaberate the misery of the Iraqi people, with an internal reign of terror besides which General Kassem's excesses paled in comparison. The gassing of Kurds, the ten-year war with Iran, the conquest of Kuwait and forced eviction from there, followed by the oppressive and ineffective UN sanctions, brought untold horror, misery and hardship to the Iraqi people. This time the midwives of the Baathist regime looked on as their protégé regime in Baghdad wrecked havoc in the region. Perhaps the intent of those who championed a change of regime in Iraq was quite innocent and honorable, perhaps not. That is now quite irrelevant. What is relevant is that the inspired Regime Change of 1963 was an unmitigated disaster.

At long last the threat from Saddam became unbearable, even for those who originally brought his Baathist party into power 40 years earlier. Or so the story goes. He is indeed a monster, widely despised for his maverick policies and for his sadism. But many around the world are not buying that as the reason for a sudden desire to change his regime.

Post-9/11 America has seen a major policy shift, in homeland security as well as in international affairs. The US, perforce, has had to review its global viewpoint in light of the new threats posed against its citizens and its allies. And in their new perspective there is no place for the Saddam Hussains of the world. President Bush's unequivocal declaration that peace in the Middle East can only come when there is democracy in every country in the region becomes even more significant. It is now becoming obvious to the Americans that 9/11 was made possible by money and support from the autocratic dictatorship of Saudi Arabia, where extremist Wahabism is taught to everyone from childhood, where Al-Qaida was born, where the bin Ladin name is revered and 15 of whose citizens were the suicide bombers of 9/11. To combat terror effectively will need a serious review of the role of Saudi Arabia and other states where human rights are trampled, dictatorships exist and the voice of citizens is brazenly silenced, leading inevitably to seething anger and erupting violence.

That democracy must be introduced into all countries of the Middle East is indeed a worthy corollary to the fact that seldom, if ever, have two democracies gone to war against each other; that in autocratic regimes dissent has no legal outlet and therefore often resorts to terror; and that such terror does not confine itself to international boundaries. No wonder then that the region has become home to violence, indiscriminate killing of innocent women and children, and suicide bombings. It appears that the US has, finally, decided to withdraw its exclusive patronage of those remaining abarations --- the hereditary autocratic Muslim rulers of the oil patch --- and permit their citizens to share in the joys of human rights, peace and democracy.

The idea of encouraging democracy to blossom in the Middle East is just as commendable as the desire to see a regime change in Baghdad. But such ideas and desires have to be carefully nurtured. The use of force is not the best solution, not even an acceptable solution, as Germany and France have officially stated, and as millions of common citizens across the globe have widely and publicly proclaimed, in demonstrations of a magnitude never seen before. But now that war has been unleashed, serious thought must be given to what follows. One thing is certain. America must not repeat its folly of the past and inflict another monster upon the hugely miserable people of Iraq, whose hopes and aspirations must not once again be played with. Neither the retired General Jay Garner nor the Afghan-American Zalemay Khalilzed nor the dozen other "cabinet members" of the "Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance" will be acceptable to the Iraqis or to the world, even as caretakers, being brazen representatives of an occupation army. After all General Garner, already ensconced in Kuwait, reports to General Franks, who reports to General Myers who reports to Secretary Rumsfeld, who reports to President Bush. Their plan to bring in an interim Iraqi government of their choosing will also not sell, as power and money will remain with the "Reconstructors" to distribute as they choose, mostly amongst their own minions and amongst US companies close to the White House and the Administration. In contrast the UN, which has stood by impotently while terror rained upon Iraq, is now clamouring to spearhead the peace in a futile bid to reclaim its easily lost relevance and legitimacy. Both have poor track records. Americans troops seldom leave a land they occupy, be it Japan, Germany and Italy occupied 60 years back or the more recently occupied Kosovos,Kuwaits and Bosnias of the world. And as peacekeepers the UN itself has failed miserably in many parts of the world.

America will have achieved its aim. Once Saddam is gone, the regime is automatically changed. Let the Iraqis handle their own problems. There is no need for an American Vice Regency. Nor of imposed, imported exiles.

All these interim administrative proposals are odious, perceived merely as a means of siphoning away Iraqi wealth while establishing a permanent military presence in Iraq. Or a much-touted proposal for a combination six-month American military occupation; followed by a couple of years of rule by Iraqis (or even Prince Hassan) appointed by America, in the usual conference of lackeys and quislings called to lend legitimacy to hair-brained schemes developed in Washington's thriving think-tanks.

Local Iraqis, freed from the shackles of Baathist terror, are a well-educated, competent lot of people, perfectly capable of shaping their own destiny. Indeed, examples of competent local leadership abound in many countries of the world, the latest being South Africa. With no experience of government during twenty eight years in prison, Nelson Mandella inspired and led his people so ably as President that today he towers above other leaders of the world. Independent Iraqi leadership, with unfettered access to the billions of dollars of its own natural wealth, needs only the expertise of international relief administrators of the UN and civil society for humanitarian work. For reconstruction its own people are best suited to use its own plentiful resources. But only as long as claimants do not surface to grab its substantial wealth in the name of recovering their own costs for a war nobody wanted. If they insist on diverting Iraqi wealth for their own contracts and for their own economies, the people of Iraq are in for another prolonged era of hardship and misery--- all in the name of Regime Change !