Is it too late for a popular uprising inside Iraq?

A RECENT report by the International Crisis Group, a foreign-policy think tank, said its researcher in Iraq late last year found Iraqis far more willing than before to discuss their attitudes to the regime. "This fact alone is a strong indication of the regime's diminished ability to instill fear," the report suggested.

Some opponents of Hussein see the imminent threat of a US invasion loosening the regime's grip. "It is helping a lot," says Mr. Zayer. "Security officials don't want to be the people's enemies if the Americans come."

Others, however, worry that US plans are stifling domestic efforts to organize a civic resistance. "People say that if the Americans are coming, why should we bother and sacrifice ourselves?" says Dr. Jabar. "The invasion threat is in a sense a sleeping pill for a popular movement."

How such a popular movement might arise in Iraq, however, is not easy to envision. The ICG report found that "the Iraqi regime's repression has devastated civil society and any autonomous form of political organization. The result is a largely depoliticized and apathetic population."

"The problem is that by showing any form of dissent you go from total conformity to outright defiance" and the risks that entails, says Dr. Tripp.

The US democracy aid groups that helped Yugoslavia and Chile have found no way to work in Iraq. "We would like to work with indigenous democrats, but where would we find them?" wonders Leslie Campbell, Middle East program director for the National Democratic Institute. "There has never seemed to be an opening within Iraq proper."

That, complains Mr. Kubba, is because nobody has looked for one, least of all the Iraqi political opposition in exile. "Saddam holds on to power only by paralyzing the majority of citizens into submission," he says. "Nearly all of Saddam's opponents have bought into the argument that Iraqis cannot liberate themselves... and only a devastating physical force can end his regime."

While the US has encouraged local civic and political opposition groups elsewhere, it has taken a very different tack in Iraq. Since 1991, US efforts have focused primarily on a military solution, or a coup.

A US-backed coup attempt failed in 1996, when Hussein's secret police infiltrated the group of plotters. In 1998, secretary of state, Madeleine Albright testified to Congress that it would be "wrong to create false or unsustainable expectations" about what US support for the divided Iraqi opposition groups could achieve. That fall the US Congress passed the Iraq Liberation Act, making it official US policy "to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq and to promote the emergence of a democratic government." Congress earmarked $5 million in aid to Iraqi opposition groups and $5 million for Radio Free Iraq, which began broadcasting in 1998 from Prague.

As American and British military pressure builds, some observers say that the moment is now ripe for a coup originating from within Hussein's ranks. The psychological warfare is already under way: the US is sending e-mail to Iraqi generals suggesting they will face a war-crimes tribunal if they use chemical weapons. It's also dropping leaflets urging Iraqi soldiers not to fire at US aircraft.

"With the Americans poised to invade, the incentive for people in the inner circle to do something about Saddam Hussein gets greater," says Dr. Tripp.

Still, advocates of nonviolent resistance lament a costly war or a putsch by Hussein's cronies need not be the only routes to regime change in Iraq. "Beneath the surface there are strong sentiments pulsating, and they could erupt," argues Jabar. "But people concentrate on military options and forget the fabric of society."

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