after the Pollack epiphany i had, i would be more inclined to say that Bush may have mis-marketed the war to the american public with neocon justifications, thus fueling a growing anti-war movement just at the wrong time
I heard Pollack on Charlie Rose last night. After describing what a threat Saddam is, how disasterous Saddam's judgement is, how containment might have worked if we had had allied support (which we didn't), but now there was no choice but war, he added that he didn't see the need for war immediately, one or two years out might do, except that now that the US had so many troops in the Gulf, it was essentially committed.
I thought that was a very irresponsible thing to say at this juncture. Even Rose, nobody's hawk, said in response, "But we don't really know the state of Saddam's nuclear programs. If he gets a nuke in six months, then we're sunk." (I could add, or if Saddam manages to buy one from Pakistan or North Korea). I could hear the response of every Bush staffer in my head, "Thanks for ignoring every political reality, buddy. In two years we might not even be in office. We certainly won't be if Al Qaeda or Saddam manages to set off a dirty bomb in New York, while we sit here playing politics nicely-nicely with the Europeans. Somebody who worked for an adminstration that was so concerned with political appearances that it proved totally ineffective in dealing with Iraq should not 'miss a good opportunity to keep quiet', as M. Chirac put it" |
