| If foreign policy were dictated by defense contractors, and defense contractors were all sociopaths who cared not at all for sending people to kill and die, I suppose you might be on to something. Since the formulation of foreign policy is altogether messier, and the sociopathic personality is rare, and not to be assumed, I think you are not. People make mistakes without being evil or stupid, because of the inherent guesswork involved in policy decisions, and sometimes there are no good alternatives, one has to choose the least noxious. For example, we had to eject Iraq from Kuwait, that was the point, to oppose aggressive war against a member state of the United Nations. Further, it was hard to get support from the Saudis to let us create massive bases there, and even harder to contemplate long term support for supporting a fully alert front. We had to settle the matter while Bush still had support for action. As for "why now", simply because we are in a position to muster sufficient support now, and thus strike a blow against a central threat before there is another outrage, comparable to 9/11.......... |
