NEWS ANALYSIS : Strike an ‘Irritation’ Unlikely to Threaten Hussein’s Survival : Strategy: Incident is called another episode in a long-term standoff. U.S. is still viewed as in a reactive mode.

WASHINGTON —  The U.S. missile strike at the heart of Iraq’s intelligence operation sends a tough message from a new American Administration but is unlikely to deeply affect President Saddam Hussein either politically or militarily, according to Mideast analysts.

U.S. officials conceded Sunday that the attack probably “irritated” the Iraqi leader more than it threatened his stability.

Targeting Hussein’s intelligence headquarters represented a shift in approach from previous strikes--from facilities on the fringe of his support network to one at the heart of his regime’s survival. Still, there are no signs that his inner circle is ready to move against Hussein.

Rather, analysts said, the strike seems to be another episode in a long standoff rather than a step closer to a conclusion.

“Short term, time is still working to Saddam’s advantage. There’s no difference between Saturday morning (before the missile strike) and Sunday morning (after the raid) in terms of being closer to seeing him overthrown,” said Henri Barkey, a U.S. Peace Institute fellow and Lehigh University professor who recently returned from northern Iraq.

“It may strengthen the U.S. hand a little by reminding Iraqis that we’re still on Hussein’s case, that we haven’t forgotten him. But it won’t encourage Iraqis to overthrow him. Within Iraq, this will not encourage the opposition to act,” Barkey said.

Persian Gulf specialist Anthony H. Cordesman, national security assistant to Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), likened the aftermath to the 70th round in a 400-round bout.

“Unless we’re willing to do what we didn’t do at the end of Desert Storm, we’re going to have to face the problem of containing Iraq for the next decade,” he said on ABC’s “This Week With David Brinkley.” He referred to the allied decision not to send troops into Baghdad and overthrow Hussein in 1991.

Indeed, the Clinton Administration, like the George Bush Administration before it, is finding itself largely in a reactive mode, with Hussein choosing provocations, such as the alleged April assassination attempt on Bush, and the Administration left to weigh whether to respond and how.

Baghdad has refused to accept the terms of U.N. Resolutions 706 and 712, which allow Iraq to sell its oil--despite U.N. economic sanctions--to pay for imported food, medicine and other humanitarian supplies. The regime balked because part of the profits would also be used to pay for U.N. guards in Iraq and to compensate Kuwait for Iraq’s 1990 invasion.

Hussein has also managed to prolong the U.S.-orchestrated coalition’s presence in the region far beyond any of the early expectations--and at far greater expense.

His strategy of stalling and wearing away the external opposition while terrorizing and demoralizing internal opposition still seems to be producing results. And the U.S. raid in response to the assassination plot, while sending a strong signal from President Clinton, would be unlikely to make the Iraqi leader waver now, the analysts predicted.

“He is absolutely in control of the situation. Saddam doesn’t need to do anything,” said Asad AbuKhalil, a research fellow at UC Berkeley’s Center for Mideast Studies.

“Despite the various hits he’s received during and after the Gulf War, he’s learned how to duplicate his military-intelligence complex all over the country,” he said. “This strike didn’t do serious damage to it.”

Hussein has been able to use the U.S. and coalition strikes to his advantage and, the analysts said, can be expected to try again to manipulate the episode for favorable domestic and Arab reaction.

“He likes these kinds of confrontations. They give him a chance to say he’s the guy who’s standing up to the Americans,” Barkey said.

While Hussein has used his strategy effectively to hold on to power, he has not been able to climb back toward a position of real strength in the region.

For Clinton to block that possibility and move to break the stalemate, experts said, he would have to go beyond punitive strikes into a broader policy.

“If it is part of an overall strategy to weaken Saddam and to facilitate his replacement, it is to be specially applauded,” said Col. Augustus Richard Norton, a Mideast expert at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. “But if it is not part of a larger strategy, then it is likely to have very little lasting significance.”

One difference between the strike ordered by Clinton and a Jan. 17 punitive raid during the Bush Administration was the nature of the target.

The earlier strike hit what was described in Washington as a nuclear weapons facility--and in Baghdad as a civilian industrial plant. That target was more peripheral to Hussein’s political survival and reflected the Bush Administration’s preoccupation with encouraging the Sunni Muslim elite surrounding Hussein to oust him, according to Laurie Mylroie, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

In contrast, the Clinton Administration directly targeted the political institution most directly responsible both for Hussein’s survival and his ability to engage in adventures both at home and abroad, she said.