If you were a Saudi and thought that Saddam had targeted Riyadh with a missile sporting a biological warhead, would you depend on American intervention, or would you pay tribute? And if he did not invade, but achieved hegemony on the Arabian peninsula through intimidation, how likely is it that the American public would be mobilized to support an invasion to curtail the threat? Sorry, but regional hegemony and the ability to get a serious cut of neighboring oil revenue to expand programs is quite plausible.
Increasingly, Saddam was using Muslim terminology to evoke support for himself and his regime. Al- Qaida and Saddam had common enemies, including the Shi'ites. (Even the Taliban hated the Shi'ites). There are many instances in which Iraq would profit from attacks sponsored by them, but carried out by stateless terrorists, to avoid retaliation, for example, if it wanted to drive our troops out of the area through a series of attacks. The risk was too grave for it not to factor in, as long as there were other reasons to move.
First, the regime remained brutal, and there were two heirs to sustain the brutality. Second, if, by some chance, Saddam were overthrown, the probability of civil war was acute, with the likelihood of drawing in Iran and Turkey, at a minimum. There was no plausible alternative to invasion. I am sorry we even went along with the inspection farce.
We have not destroyed Iraqi autonomy. For the first time, we have provided the conditions for true autonomy, that is, through substantial participation of Iraqis, and not some thug and his kinsmen, in the running of government.
Terrorists are not bred primarily by evidence of our strength, but by evidence of our weakness, which they seek to exploit. If Iraq is better off in the end, it will be the best evidence of our benevolence, against Islamacist propaganda, that we could show....... |
