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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group
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To: Ilaine who wrote (41536)9/2/2002 2:30:10 PM
From: jcky  Read Replies (2) of 281500
 
You seem to think that if we don't attack him, he'll hang on to the weapons. I think he'll give Al Qaeda the weapons as soon as he thinks we *might* attack him. After all, once we attack him, can he be sure that will have the ability to give Al Qaeda the weapons?

I think you are missing the point Steven was trying to make, CB. There has been an unwritten code of conduct in the international community to honor the sovereignty of nations unless one is attacked first or in the position of being imminently threatened with invasion. This administration is determined to undermine the sanctity of this precedent without good cause for Iraq (or until the president can present a unified case with urgency and conviction based upon evidence).

The policy of pre-emptive strike will become a self-fulfilling prophecy in Iraq. We charge Saddam with the intention of using his current or future arsenal of WMDs. We invade his country based upon these unproven assumptions, backing him into a corner with no recourse, and he retaliates in response to our aggression by employing his current WMDs. The predictions come true by virtue of our own exploits. The pertinent question is whether a policy of pre-emptive strike will force Saddam into becoming the caricature of our own worst nightmares. Military history has shown, repeatedly, the futility of possessing nuclear arms for the sole intention of military conquest. The role that nuclear arms play in deterrence is unquestioned. In other words, nuclear arms are sought to prevent invasions, not to promote them.

And by the way, the case of Saddam using nerve gas upon the Kurds and the Iranians are all consistent with the policy of deterrence. With the Kurds Saddam's use of nerve gas served to make a very blunt point: uprising by constituents of his own country which threatens the existence of his governance will not be tolerated. And when the tide of the Iran-Iraq war turned into the favor of Tehran, Saddam employed nerve gas upon the countless wave of Iranians overrunning into Iraq to deter any further advancements. It worked.
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