After the Gulf war, Iraq was left with his current leader at the helm.
That's because (as I remember reading at the time) it was considered better like that, Saddam not being religious and allowing the country to remain united rather than split between the Kurds and the Shiites.
What should be done now is to persuade Saddam to let the UN weapons inspectors back in , this without having him and Iraq loose face.
I'm sure it's not that difficult. An adroit diplomat should be able to achieve this. There are no cases of uncontroled suicide bombers in Iraq.

About the middle-east, the situation for the Palestinians has become so desperate that it is now an honor for a volunteer to commit the bombing and sacrifice of his life, even an honor to his family. The situation won't stop by not meeting with Arafat and blaming him for not having prevented an individual to decide this sacrifice. It's even worse than the Al Qaeda network (where all relatives couldn't believe their son did it and where it should be possible to track those who trained in Afghanistan).
As long as no hope for a better future is perceived by the Palestinians, they'll go on bombing this way.

Raoul