Saddam playacted compliance. He never even let anybody out of the country. This was a setup for a few more futile months of inspectors running around, finding nothing, and saying 'well we found nothing, we don't know what happened to previous stocks, we don't know if there was anything to find' - which is just what they did say. Had the army sat the entire summer in Kuwait, the result would have been the same, and the options would have been the same - either an American climbdown, leaving Saddam the triumphant survivor, or an American invasion. The only achievement would have been a waste of time and a loss of momentum, which was just what the Security Council had in mind when they proposed inspections and put Hans Blix in charge.
We had things moving in the right direction. Much more progress was possible diplomatically
What "progress" is it you conceive would have been possible with Saddam Hussein left in charge? The man was a walking WMD, and if the US had backed down, how long could the sanctions have lasted, or the no-fly zones protecting the Shia and the Kurds? You have not a single shred of evidence that things were "moving in the right direction". The only right direction for Iraq was the end of the Saddam regime. If you don't believe me, read what the Iraqis have to say about it.
What did Clinton accomplish in the Mideast with diplomacy alone?
Did Clinton amass 200,000 troops on their borders? I must have missed something.
That was exactly my point, I should have thought.
I won't be foolish to claim that the war in Iraq hasn't opened some eyes. But at the same time I don't think that war was needed to get to this point. You need to be ready to go to war, but you need to be ready to negotiate as well.
Well, that's something. But if even Gulf War I didn't "open some eyes", whatever makes you think that all the jaw-jaw that preceded and followed should have done so? Please note: only the actual Iraq war - the actual war against terror-supporting states & for liberty proclaimed by that simpleton Bush cowboy, succeed in opening those eyes. Before that, Arab dictators were as unremovable as the sun and moon.
I thought you were arguing in favor of diplomacy instead of military action. If instead you are arguing for diplomacy with military threats, but not serious threats that are to be acted upon, let me just ask, how stupid do you think Arabs are? Do you think they can't tell the difference between a blusterer and a man who means business? Don't you think their reactions will be different for the man who means business? If Bush had only threatened, you would see a whole lotta business as usual in the Middle East - with much kowtowing to Saddam, a man who in his own way, meant business too.
where general knowledge of what really happened is more widely known you see that the war does not have support.
Not exactly the message I take from this recent Harris poll:
harrisinteractive.com |
