| In the aftermath of 9/11, Cheney went on an international trip to let our "allies" know that the US was adopting a new "regime change" policy. This trip, and the message that Cheney carried, completely alienated our allies who, IMO, saw it for what it was. We could never, ever build a broad coalition around this policy of pre-emptive war. The US never regained international trust or support after Cheney's trip -- on the contrary, we really made people angry with us for telling them "you are with us or against us" on Iraqi regime change. To cover for Blair, we agreed to make rash public statements to justify a war that was already a matter of policy. It was an extremely bad move. We have been paying a price for it ever since, and continue to become increasingly isolated and arrogant in our policies. A solution to the issue of the presumed Iraqi possession of WMD truly required a multilateral solution, barring any immediate threat -- which is why is was necessary to "create" an non-existent immediate threat, a pretext, to justify our unilateral regime change policy. Nobody bought it, although it was well-sold to the American people. It is truly sad that selling the war required telling bald lies. Now the pretext has fallen apart and we are seen for what we have allowed ourselves to become -- the ugly American writ very, very large. |
