David Kay, who should know something about this, came to the conclusion that we were wrong. The evidence pointed in that direction.
At the same time Kay also concluded that, while there were no stockpiles in Iraq, Saddam was just as dangerous as we thought, even more so, in terms of his programs and his clear intentions. If you take the first half of Kay's conclusion, you must take the other half also.
and KLP if you do not recognize how we have limited our Iran/North Korea options by invading Iraq
If you act, you tie up some of your strength, that much is true. However, the US has a LOT of strength, and we haven't even begun to tap what we could do if we were serious. We are still fighting on a peace-time footing.
On the other hand, if you never act, even when provoked, you persuade all the other players that you never will act; your strength doesn't matter because you are a paper tiger.
That's what Iraq and Iran and Syria and Libya and North Korea thought before we invaded Iraq. Now they must factor different information into their thinking. Our invasion of Iraq already made Libya flip and expose the whole Pakistani nuclear arms market. As for the options in Iran and Syria, you're really going to have to explain how having a large American army on their borders limits our options with them, as opposed to being nowhere near. Diplomacy is ever so much more credible, you know, when it is backed with credible threat, the operative word being "credible". |
