Suddenly, Mr. Nice Guy : Deal between Baghdad and the Kurds could open exit door for U.S.

Saddam Hussein’s customary response to political challenge is to mercilessly destroy any who dare to defy him. Now, internationally embarrassed by the revolt and flight of much of Iraq’s Kurdish population and the protective movement of foreign troops into northern Iraq, he is suddenly purring like a pussycat.

At his initiative, talks have been held and a tentative deal has been struck with key Kurdish leaders. If carried out in good faith, the deal could brake the drive behind decades of Kurdish resistance to Baghdad’s rule. The Kurds wouldn’t get the nation they thought they had been assured in 1920 by World War I’s victorious allies, but they would get the autonomy Iraq first promised them in 1970.

A big if, given Hussein’s unbroken record of conscienceless deceit and betrayal. Why believe he is ready now to end a sordid pattern of discrimination and even allow what Jalal Talabani, leader of one of the Kurds’ biggest political factions, grandly predicts will be a new era of democracy, pluralism and press freedom?

The short answer is that Hussein has no choice. U.N. Security Council-ordered trade sanctions on Iraq remain in force. Their continuance is now explicitly linked to the Kurdish problem, specifically to the perceived threat to “international peace and security” posed by the flight of hundreds of thousands of Kurds after their failed revolt against Baghdad’s rule. So making peace is expedient for Hussein. The Kurds, on their part, may well see the current moment as the most opportune time to cut a deal, when Hussein is weakened and international sympathy for their plight is great.

An early settlement between Baghdad and the Kurds could open a timely exit door from Iraq--where none can now be seen--for the American and other Western forces that are aiding and providing security to the embattled minority. In the end only the Kurds can decide. They risk much in trusting Hussein. They stand to gain much if somehow he can be made to keep his word.