Assessing The Background Of Saddam Hussein Politics Essay

Assessing The Background Of ibn Talal ibn Talal ibn Talal ibn Talal ibn Talal Hussein Hussein Politics searchThe history of ibn Talal Hussein Hussein and his draws capabilities started up in weensy village on the outskirts of the city of Tikrit (G.Butt 7) where he was born in 1937 and grew up facing the atm of anti-British attitude meaned by mess at that time. He had a really hard childhood, however he managed to number his basic education at school. When he was 20 years old, a young king Faisal II was killed by general Kasim and a mathematical group of army officers who overthrew a weakened monarchy that had been introduced by the British three decades earlier. ibn Talal Hussein Hussein was introduced to politics by his uncle Chajrullach and became an active member of Bath policy-making party. subsequently an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate general Kasim, he had to escape from the coun essay. In 1963, general Kassim was overthrown by Bath party which en sufficientd ibn Talal Hussein to return from out-migration and be shed over the duties of a psyche responsible for Bath party internal security. After 8 months of general inst great power and semipolitical murders, the authorities of Bath party fell down which forced ibn Talal Hussein Hussein to exhaust into underground. Five years later, Bath party returned. This time, it was a good deal split up prep ard for taking over the power. The new president Al Bakr treasured to introduce a democratic system in Iraq and ap passed ibn Talal Hussein to become the head of secret police as nobody else treasured to paying back over this particular position considered to be a squalid job (S.K. Aburish, 5) . ibn Talal Hussein Hussein worked hard on reinforcing the security forces which eliminated political elites of all political options using the most cruel methods such(prenominal)(prenominal) as tortures and murders. A year later, in 1969, he was appointed the coun exertions vice-president. He was shut up responsible for security and special forces in which he use to hold people from Al Bu Nasir tribe, i.e the tribe to which he be eagle-eyeded. By providing the poor and undereducated men with the well paid job of security agents he was able to establish a group of fully trusted supporters who helped him to clean up the environment from opp iodinnts and enemies (Gazeta PL 9). After ten years, this, in fact, enabled Saddam Hussein the to take over the total power and govern Iraq. In 1979, he arrested Hasan al Bakr and became the president of Iraq. Under the pretext of fighting with traitors who wanted to give up Iraq to Syria, he arrested, tortured and killed hundreds of Revolutionary Council and Bath party members. The climate of political crime and murders did not disturb him in the outgrowth of his international move (T.Kjeilen 8). Even though Iraq was in alliance with Soviet Union, Saddam Hussein still maintained the relations with the Western countries. Owing to rapidly increment income from oil sale in 1970s (Britannica Online Encyclopedia 15), Iraq under the spark advance of Bath party controlled by Saddam Hussein introduced an ambitious excogitate of developing a novel indus essay and agri madnessure to reduce the hatful of imported products, and improving the infrastructure (transportation, water and electric energy supply, health services). Iraq started to be regarded as a growing economy and one of the economical powers in the region. All these caused that Saddam Hussein, instead of using the revolutionary ideology to tar lower support for his actions, could use the arguments of economic development. He started to consider him ego as a drawing card of all the Arab countries (Wikipedia 10). However, regular(a) though m whatsoever modern industrial facilities were established, e.g. modern cement plants were reinforced up, production efficiency could lone about(prenominal) be achieved with the assistance of international exper ts since the local labour was highly unable (authors own observations). This led to station that Iraki products could hardly compete on foreign markets. Also due to the fact that there were huge take for infrastructure, the government could hardly reach the planned goals even though the coin were available. Saddam Hussein needed manything else to reinforce his position. The Islamic revolution in Iran caused that Saddam Hussein was give upd with the international support, especially the USA, who wanted to stop the development of Islamic fanaticism. This led to the outbreak of the Iraki-Iranian warfare during which Saddam Hussein built up the arsenal of all the different weapons that made Iraq become the heart and soul East military power. This was followed by invasion on Kuwait in 1990 which ended up with the Gulf War. It was detect by J.Hickman 11 that regimes could rarely last losing one war, and in grimace of Saddams government there were two wars one after an an anoth er(prenominal)(prenominal)(prenominal), therefore he posed a straits of what were the lead secrets of Saddam Hussein that allowed him to stay in power. In the following chapter I will shew to answer this question by analysing the lead features of the Iraqi dictator.3. Key drawing cardship capabilities of the Iraqi leaderIn order to limit the key leadership capabilities, it would be necessary to find an answer to the question what features were represented by Saddam Hussein that made him an effective leader in the mettle East and Iraq during the 3 decades of 1970s, 1980s and 1990s? correspond to Stoner and Wankel 1, the effective leaders possess certain features or properties such as charisma, the ability to anticipate the events and the ability to convince people in order to birth their support. A.Sharplin 2 discusses the trait approach to leadership based on a believe that the leaders who are effective possess some particular features that other people do not have such as p hysical strength, stamina, size, acquaintance, integrity, wisdom, etc. Kouzes and Posner 12 analyse how the leaders mobilize other people to do extraordinary things, what practices they use to transform values into actions, visions into realities, obstacles into innovations, separateness into solidarity, and risks into rewards. All of the above mentioned features base on the behaviour of the leaders. J.B.Avolio at al 4 made an attempt to group all the different leadership features in order to define 3 groups of leadership styles including transformational leadership, transactional leadership and corrective avoidant leadership. avocation Freuds theory of personality types, M.Maccoby 16 focused on description of narcissistic leaders, features of which put forward in like manner be attri plainlyed to the former Iraqi leader.Therefore, what features or leadership styles feces we allocate to Saddam Hussein. In the following subsections I will try to analyse Saddams leadership streng ths and weaknesses3.1. leaders strengths of Saddam HusseinSaddam Hussein definitely represented an autocratic leadership style which, in fact, was the altogether possible way to govern the country consisting of Kurds and Arabs who additionally subscribed to two opposing branches of Islamic religion, i.e. Sunni and Shia Muslims (G.Butt, 7). This is particularly visible nowadays taking into musing the difficulties faced by the USA and other Western countries who try to follow up the democratic rules into this very conservative and politically shattered country.Said K.Aburish 6 place a number of strong leadership features represented by Saddam Hussein includingextraordinary ability to see the overall picture of future day achievements that allowed him to get to the lustd vision, level-headed organizers skills which was something special in the Arab mentality surgical operation in the environment of the Middle East this caused that he had a large-minded potential and was much b etter visible when compared to other Arab leaders,ability to get the control over planned activities by surrounding himself with relatives and basing on family and tribal connections as those that could be trusted,ability to work long hours,enormous popularity even though he was a dictator he was able to provide the Iraqis, especially in 1970s and mid 1980s, with what they expected and needed, i.e. wealth, infrastructure and prospects.good learners skills as he read a lot and listened to a medley of people.J.Hickman 11 identified some other features of Saddam Husseins leadership strength such asunderstanding of the value of state terror,development of a cult around his person,appreciation of the political value of relatives and close friends,ability to get the peoples stick outance for super risky decisions such as declaring war against the neighbouring countries or fighting the minorities,ability to exploit the international public opinion by getting support of the Muslims from all over the world and attracting the attention of others to unfair retaliatement of the Iraqi nation by the economic sanctions.It seems that narcissism was the leadership strength of Saddam Hussein. match to M.Maccoby 16 the narcissistic leaders become groovy charismatic leaders due to the fact that they have fascinating visions which get them supporters. Maccoby classifies narcissistic leaders among the people who have widespread imagination and try to create the future instead of trying to understand the future. However, he noticed that having the vision is not enough as the psychiatric patients also have visions. In case of Saddam Hussein the ability of using hot air and ability to arouse enthusiasm among the followers seems to be this additional feature.3.2. Leadership weaknesses of Saddam HusseinThere have been several important leadership weaknesses that brought Saddam Hussein and Iraq to the disaster. One of the most evident weak points has been the capacity to intimi date the people when governing the country. On one side, he had a strong security apparatus which was indicated as strength but on the other hand, by using terror he did not get the acceptance of, at least, a part of the Iraqi society.Ability to take risky decisions could have been classified as one of the strengths but, if think to the ability to make mistakes, both stage the leadership weakness. This was the case with the involvement into the Iran/Iraq war which produced a debt of 65-100 billion USD (S.K. Aburish 6). Even though Saddam declared the victory, he was unable to provide the Iraqi people with the fruits of this victory which led him to another mistake of invading Kuwait. Therefore, one of the serious weaknesses was Saddams ability of leading people in the wrong direction.Narcissism was mentioned in the previous subsection to constitute one of Saddams leadership strengths. However, it arouse also be one of the weaknesses which was the case of the former Iraqi leader. consort to Maccoby 16, narcissistic leaders only accept the desired information. They love giving the speeches and are dominant during the meetings with subordinates. They are very sensitive to any criticism and react violently. In case of Saddam Hussein, any criticism was punished with the death sentence which led to situation of being completely isolated from reality. This also caused that the number of people he could trust was getting smaller and smaller (S.K. Aburish 6).3.3. Analysis of Saddams leadership capabilities and styles looking at at different leadership features of Saddam Hussein, following Bass and Steidlmeier 14, it can be stated that the Iraqi leader represented a assortment of transformational and transactional leadership style as most of the leaders do. Such features as charisma and vision could place the former Iraqi leader among those who represent the transformational leadership style as he tried and managed to get his supporters come to and committed to hi s visions. On the other hand, if we were to attribute the leadership style to Saddam Hussein, transactional style seems to be more appropriate as he used to motivate his followers by reward (offering well paid jobs and other benefits to his supporters) and punishment (putting people to prison, torturing and murdering). This style of leadership requires from the people that are managed or ruled to do exactly what the leader wants them to do. The Iraqi leader established clear structures that gave him full authority and power over the Iraqi subordinates whose performance was monitored. According to Bass et alia 17, the leader representing the transactional style outlines the compliance norms as well as evaluates the performance that does not meet the standards and can punish all those who do not keep the set up standards.According to D.Goleman 18 particular capabilities such as intellectual properties, cognitive abilities and possession of long term vision that contribute to certain l eadership styles are extremely important but he discovered that emotional intelligence is much more important for effective leadership of large organizations. He also discovered that the larger the organization was, the more important was emotional intelligence. Lets try to analyse Saddam Hussein regarding the elements of emotional intelligence including self- cognisance, self-control, motivation, empathy and social awareness.The self awareness is the ability to realistically evaluate own personality D.Goleman 18. It seems that Saddam Hussein was unaware of his shortcomings and was totally unable to listen to the constructive criticism. According to Goleman, people having low level of self-awareness are threatened by any suggestion of introducing improvements. This was definitely featured by the former Iraqi leader who used to punish anyone who criticized his activities. The self-control seemed to be another weak point of the Iraqi leader as he was unable to create the atmosphere of trust and very often used to lose his temper when talking to subordinates. It seems that motivation was the only element out of five emotional intelligence factors that Saddam Hussein possessed. He had a very strong desire to achieve success. Empathy and social awareness, both associated with social relations were also weak points of Saddam Hussein as, being a dictator, he did not try to understand the feelings of his subordinates. He used to govern his subordinates by fear.4. ConclusionsThere is a long list of particular leadership features that could be attributed to Saddam Hussein showing his skills and capabilities that differentiated him from other people. However, even though there is no question about specific leadership capabilities of the former Iraqi leader, we mustiness not forget that they were supported with very brutal and criminal activities such as tortures and murders. A.Safty 3 raised the issue of the moral dimension of leadership related to the political context . He is of the opinion that dictators often characterized as people who had visions, were able to mobilize the supporters, were self-confident and had the ability to persuade the audience should not be called effective or great leaders. Instead, he proposed to use the term of a ruler in regard to the brutal dictators such as Saddam Hussein as this word is more in line with leading by tyranny, force, fear and intimidation. The issue of ethics and morality has also been discussed by Bass and Steidlmeier 14 who noticed that somebody who represents the transformational style of leadership could be artful in relation to the followers, and as they stated such a person might have the public image of a saint but privately be a deceptive devil This statement ideally suits Saddam Hussein who represented certain features of transformational leadership which were not certain but pseudo-transformational as named by Burns 13. Due to these reasons, even though Saddam Husseins leadership reflecte d both transformational and transactional features which is normally treated as the vanquish combination of styles, it is so difficult to talk about leadership capabilities as the ethics and morality have been disregarded. In this particular case we should, in fact, talk about the dictatorship capabilities instead of leadership capabilities even if some leadership features discussed above in this paper can be attributed to this Middle East dictator. The analysis of the emotional intelligence of Saddam Hussein has shown that he was missing the most important features such as self-awareness, self-control, empathy and social awareness which are a crucial thing for effective leadership.