As you might guess, I thought these issues were as important to consider as the first. However, the move between the next to last paragraph and the last one is the entire game to me. What does Tom Friedman think are the conditions under which war, given his previous columns, would be the "the only option?"
My flip answer is "all possible scenarios, save Saddam's being killed in a coup". My longer answer, is where does Tom Friedman get this sudden touching faith in inspections? He must know
a) Saddam has WMDs (Anybody who doesn't believe this is either ignorant of Iraq or believes in Tinkerbell)
b) The inspectors aren't really looking very hard. Whether yesterday's would-be defector was real or not, nobody is going to trust his life in the hands of Mr. Blix et. al.
c) The inspectors have once again been compromised by Iraqi intelligence, ensuring that inspected sites are all clean.
d) It wouldn't matter much if the inspectors were really looking, because they have little hope of finding anything major without Iraqi cooperation.
e) The fact that they have found scarcely anything is a sure sign of Iraqi non-cooperation. See point a) And oh yes, Saddam is preparing his best troops to attack using those chemical weapons he doesn't have any of.
f) Inspectors are only in Iraq getting seeming compliance because we have >100,000 troops parked on Saddam's borders. If the troops go home, the inspections stop, and everybody is back where they were a year ago, except US credibility is now ruined, and Saddam, with all but pro-forma sanctions lifted, is free to buy nukes from Kim Jong Il.
Tom Friedman of course knows all this. So why is he playing the 'continue inspections' charade? It is not as if France and Germany were for some alternate, serious course of action. They are for permanent inaction, with some 'diplomatic process' jimmies sprinkled on top. That is a recipe for a nuclear-armed Saddam, and soon. But they do not seem to care. |
