Let's face it...defeating Saddam is a relatively safe bet that works very well to woo like minded Americans at an electorally favorable time, certanly safer than to fail at many more difficult tasks, such as capturing AlQueda leaders, destroying the organization worldwide, solving the Palestinian/Israeli conflict, stabilizing Afghanistan, solving the Pakistan/India conflict, putting the economy on better footing, reducing budget deficits, and a pletora of other domestic issues.
There is no evidence to either suggest or support the idea that Bush has political motivations with respect to Iraq. If you know of any, please present it -- otherwise, your statement is meaningless opinion.
There are other excellent reasons for defeating Saddam at this time. When you have a big problem you often find a good solution by solving it in smaller, manageable chunks. Saddam is a manageable chunk of a much bigger problem. It makes total sense to deal with Saddam first.
Further, defeating Saddam will bring a great deal of stability to the region. While there will be temporary instability until things settle out, over a period of a year or two, as a new government evolves, the entire region will benefit.
Also, as we've seen before, once Saddam is defeated we will have the support of the entire Arab community -- only the terrorist nations will be against us, which is fine -- the rest will be overwhelmingly supportive of us, which gives us more clout in subsequent engagements.
Defeating Iraq first may be useful in causing Iran to become a lesser, or even a non-problem.
As you can see, there are plenty of reasons for defeating Iraq first. None of which is political.
solving the Palestinian/Israeli conflict
What makes you think WE can solve this problem? What would you do to "solve" either the Palestinian or India/Pakistan conflict? WE can't do a damned thing about either of these, other than sending in a moderator.
In the case of the Palestinians, nothing can happen until they stop the violence. Israel (and the US) will NEVER reward their violence. They must stop the violence, then see where things go. The Palestinians are their own worst enemies. |
