My enthusiasm for the Iraq war was actually rather low. (Some of the idiots opposing it drive one right into opposing them, though.) There seemed to be no proof of the existence of WMD. Lots of claims, but no proof. Even given proof, how possibly could a case be made that Iraq presented a greater threat than NK?
The one argument that did seem to carry weight was that knocking out Saddam would allow us to withdraw troops from Saudi, pulling the teeth of one of OBL's complaints.
And there was the alternative of simply continuing the (rather leaky) embargo on Iraq and letting them hit us first. If they did that (rather unlikely, true), then US counteraction would be fully justified and all (well, most; I'm sure Ray Duray would find something to complain about) the screaming and yelling about a US preemptive attack wouldn't happen.
The risk would be that potentially thousands could be killed by a strike by Iraq. But millions could die as a result of an NK nuclear attack, and that seemed to carry no weight.
As things now stand, the US still has a mess on its hands. Keeping Iraq peaceful will require tens of thousands of troops for years. Rebuilding will require hundreds of billions.
For what?
Frankly, I'm back to my isolationist stance: The US stays out of other peoples disputes until it effects us. The US can't fix the ME mess. Only the Arabs and Israelis can do that.
NOT getting involved in that mess might just have good results: Suppose the US told Israel it would give it no aid and sell it no weapons. How long do think it would take the Israeli gov't to figure out that their best interest lay in a reasonable settlement with their neighbors? |
