The two major rationales for action against Saddam are, first, that toppling him and establishing a nicer regime in his place would help change the dynamics of the Middle East, and second, that not toppling him now will just postpone things until some future major Iraq crisis down the road which will be very nasty because he'll have nukes by then.
Me, I find the latter argument somewhat more plausible, but only because of the specific characteristics of Saddam. Most of the wonks I know agree (including O'Hanlon and Gordon, and Pollack too for that matter), although we go back and forth about whether it's reason enough to favor invasion.
Most of the neocons I know (including folks like Eliot Cohen), on the other hand, agree with you in finding the first, more positive rationale the stronger one. Given how little care we've taken with post-Taliban Afghanistan, though, I'm not sure there are strong grounds for optimism that an Iraq operation would do much more than get rid of Saddam (which would be a huge good in itself, of course).
We'll see.
tb@yawn.com |
