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The Cold War gave totalitarianism a bad name, in more than one respect. It was used to characterize the communist other, suggesting that it was a continuation, albeit under different flags, of the fascist impulse and thus the antithesis of the West's image of itself. It also came to be used in political science not merely to describe but also to explain the political regimes of countries dominated by one party, one ideology and one leader. There were plenty of these around in the postcolonial world, and the term was freely bandied about, generally applied to regimes that were repulsive to liberal sensibilities and that happened to be allies of the USSR or of China. Of course, there were also Western-allied states that looked remarkably similar and this led to a good deal of casuistry on the part of Western leaders when trying to explain why one dictatorship was an appalling totalitarian tyranny, whereas the other was an authoritarian force for stability.
Curiously, Iraq under the Bath party, and especially under the rule of Saddam Hussein was the dubious beneficiary of both of these labels. When it was allied to the USSR or, after the Cold War, when it was seen as a "pariah stateâ[euro], the system was described as "totalitarianâ[euro]. However, when it seemed to be more amenable to - and...