If it was deemed as not credible by Saddam why did he change his position regarding Bush's demands to allow the return of the weapons inspectors? Saddam saw that Bush meant business. Upper hand was totally with the US.
It was deemed credible enough to PRETEND compliance, but even the army was not enough to pry a single scientist out of the country, let alone press for any reforms of Iraq and the end to human rights abuses! The US had the upper hand just so long as its military threat was deemed credible. Saddam tried a bluff - pretend compliance. If the US had folded on a bluff, it would no longer have been credible. Have you ever played poker?
This should be clear; If the families of the soldiers that lost their lives in Iraq had a choice of their loved ones waiting in Kuwait until they were needed...or dying in Iraq, I think I know what they would choose.
I don't know why you should think so. Military families had their chance to disapprove of Bush's policies in the last election, and voted for Bush over Kerry by about 70 to 30. Support for the Iraq war is extremely strong in the military and military families, every poll says so.
Did the poll ask the Iraqis if they would have preferred a non military intervention where their family would still be alive as opposed to an invasion that would kill tens of thousands?
No, it just asked them if they thought the military invasion was necessary to get rid of Saddam, and they answered "yes" by about 80%. I'm sure they would have preferred Saddam to have gone voluntarily without the war. That option was not available.
You can insist that it was from now to doomsday, but you will not get any serious student of international affairs to agree with you. Even your fellow Leftists don't pretend to have had an alternate plan for getting rid of Saddam. They were arguing that Iraq should be left alone; either they argued as you do that Saddam was "contained" or they made the contradictory argument that sanctions should be lifted because they made the Iraqis suffer (they certainly did the way Saddam administered them with the help of his UN oil-for-food accomplices). If the sanctions had been lifted, then Saddam would not have been in the so-called "box" anymore, but what the hey.
Their lives are better because Saddam is gone...not because they lost their families.
Your policies would have kept Saddam in place. The dead would be filling mass graves with extreme legality, with no hope of anything better to come.
You have to make arguments about the real world, not some fantasy island where threats will work by magic whether they are credible or not, and diplomacy alone can remove the worst dictators without a shot being fired. |
