<<You have also forgotten
4. Cost/benefits of continuing containment - a policy both very expensive,>>
Hey Nadine, sounds like yet another new rationale: we invaded Iraq to save money on continuing containment programs! Problem is, the ongoing Iraq intervention qualifies as "expensive" on a scale that is not even laughably comparable with what would have been our expenditures for continuing containment.
<<a major incitement to terrorists in its own right (why did OBL found AQ?)>>
Yes, the continuing presence of US forces in Saudi Arabia was ONE of that murderous nutcase's reasons for his campaign against the infidels. Others were: the mere existence of Israel; the Chechnya conflict; and the perceived licentiousness of Western culture and media. All of those conditions existed prior to the Iraq intervention, so let's assume that, yes, those conditions created a certain baseline level of "incitement to terrorists". The Iraq intervention then slapped an enormous multiplier (times ten maybe?)on that baseline incitement level. Is your argument on this point, "it was bad, that was our rationale for making it far worse"?
<<and clearly failing.>> Failing? The post-war interviews with former Iraqi scientists confirmed what the inspectors were about to report before the war: no existing WMD programs. The overflight program was another success; the Kurds set up a pretty nice little mini-country inside his borders. And the sanctions, even leaky, kept his military machine in an astonishingly degraded state. While it's necessary to the viability of the neocon argument that ALL OPTIONS OTHER THAN IMMEDIATE INVASION WERE POINTLESS AND DANGEROUS, reasonable minds may differ, your "clearly failing" handwave aside. Bush was president for 15 months before the invasion. Had he started quickly and applied determined leadership (which he has at times shown), he could have successfully played other cards. Problem was, no other card was on the Bush table.
<<The other options in Iraq, when followed out realistically to their most likely results, were not good at all.>>
None of the options, including the occupation option, were "good". The issue is whether the option chosen had to be chosen, when it was chosen.
<<weigh all the heavy costs and risks of overthrowing Saddam against some happy do-nothing, business-as-usual outcome,>>
We've seen Bush faced with a hostile third-world country, led by a dangerous, mentally unstable tyrant who has WMDs at his disposal, and who threatens to use them on nearby countries. We've seen that the precise foreign policy Bush selected in that case. Surprise, it's your "happy do-nothing, business-as-usual outcome". I think you know the country.
<<The only outcome of more inspections would have been to find nothing,>> True, because those programs were dismantled years earlier, as a consequence of those "clearly failing" sanctions and inspections. I know you believe the rumors (because you repeatedly post them here) that all the bad stuff really, really existed but was moved to Syria at the last minute; but let's be boring and put rumor aside, and look at what has ACTUALLY been found. OK, done looking at it, didn't take long.
Getting back to capability and urgency, it seems much of the pre-war fodder on both issues was fed to the eager Administration (and then the public) by eager exiles, particularly Mr. Chalabi. Entirely aside from the Iraq debate, I hope that the post-mortem of all this leads to more care and objectivity in the government's vetting, analysis, and dissemination of raw intelligence. That, in turn, might lead to better decisions on national security.
John |
