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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group
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To: Sun Tzu who wrote (140537)7/15/2004 10:36:09 PM
From: Nadine Carroll  Read Replies (2) of 281500
 
1. Capability: Intent alone is not enough; you have to show that Saddam had the capacity to do great damage and that there was no other way to prevent his access beyond this war.

2. Urgency: You have to show that this was an urgent matter that could not be delayed even for a few months to allow the inspectors finish their job or to plan for some kind of assassination/revolution over the next few years.

3. Cost/benefits: You have to show that the most likely damage (not a hypothetical worst case) that Saddam could have done was far worse than the most likely damage of this war (for example the increase in terrorist recruits for at least a generation).

Yes, you would have to make those arguments, and someone did - Ken Pollack, in The Threatening Storm.

You have also forgotten

4. Cost/benefits of continuing containment - a policy both very expensive, a major incitement to terrorists in its own right (why did OBL found AQ?) and clearly failing.

It is a false dichotomy to weigh all the heavy costs and risks of overthrowing Saddam against some happy do-nothing, business-as-usual outcome, or more unlikely still, against some fairy story where the omnipotent UN inspectors manage the job. The only outcome of more inspections would have been to find nothing, and make the US back down. Huge loss of face for the US, triumph for Saddam.

The other options in Iraq, when followed out realistically to their most likely results, were not good at all.
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