..Kerry was too much of a pansy politician to take an unpopular view that might ruin his chance for election
Agree completely with that. The part about exercising leverage is an after the fact rationalization to explain his vote to antiwar Dem's. They in turn are willing to bend over backwards to accept that rationalization. The problem for most of them isn't the war ... it's that Bush waged the war. That's why no one is bothered by the fact that Kerry (and Clinton, and Gore, etc,) is on record making the same argument in 1997, 1998 that the Bush administration made in 2002, 2003.
I accept that the administration is serious about trying to use Iraq to introduce democratic ideas into the region in hopes that those ideas will transform the region into one less hostile to us. This is a policy direction which has worked for us over time in the past - first in west Europe, later in east Europe, parts of east Asia (Japan, S Korea, Phillipines, Taiwan, etc.). I don't know if the middle east can be transformed over time like the other areas I mentioned were, but trying to do so is a positive and visionary effort.
..time may tell that we are, in fact, committed for a generation after all.
Well, we're more than halfway there ... we've been involved since 1990.
There were slower, less intrusive methods of dealing with Saddam Hussein that did not involve destroying every institution in that country, wiping out their police force, and creating such havoc that our own country had to take over governance, security, the economy and, in addition, fund all of it from our own treasury.
I don't think so. Hey, even after the invasion, it took months to find Saddam. Saddam had created a ruthless Stalinist style police state - very firmly entrenched. The first Bush administration hoped and counted on there being some way to get rid of Saddam by encouraging internal rebellion or a coup. It didn't work. |
