I would say, offhand, that US/Iraq bears more similarity to Israel/Lebanon in '82 than to Israel in '67, at least in terms of relative threat and relative force of arms anyway.
The WMD argument is considerably more ambiguous than the "War Now!" people would have it. As I've alluded to earlier, if you want to worry about WMD, worry about Pakistan, where nukes are not the least little bit hypothetical.
As far as "wiping out all the Arabs", that's not all that distant from local "War Now!" sentiment. At least to the point where Saudi Arabia and Egypt are considered more or less equivalent on the "due for regime change" list to Iraq and Iran, regardless of how long we've found common interest with them, or that those governments are much more threatened by than allied with the Islamists. Jordan seems to be the only place that gets a pass, it being the one shining example of Hashemite restoration and all. Plus, Jordanian troops are massed at the Saudi border! Allegedly, the previous King Hussein there was a loyal CIA client to boot, by some accounts. On retainer for $1meg a year, supposedly. |
