I agree with many of your points.
However, I think that Bush (and the conservatives in general) tend to think of the situation in simpler terms. You could say too simple, or you could say that liberals tend to overthink things (boy, does that put a big target on my butt, or what?)
Here is a sort of flow chart of the argument (the engineers amongst us will like this).
1) Do you believe that Saddam either has WMD or wants them? If not, go to 5.
2) Do you believe that Saddam will use these WMD? If not, go to 6.
3) Do you believe that we should wait for Saddam to use these WMD? If so, go to 7.
4) Preemptive attack is the only solution. End.
5) IMHO, a naive position, given Saddams history of use of chemical weapons and past actions to obtain WMDs. End.
6) IMHO, a credible but dangerous opinion. He is clearly wacko, and we don't know what will set him off. End.
7) IMHO, indefensible. If you think he has WMD, or desires to, and would use them, then we HAVE to take him out. End.
I personally arrived at 4. However, as I've stated, I think Bush did a lousy job on the diplomacy side, and that will not only potentially endanger our troops and/or the objective, but have potentially large negative long term ramifications. |
