OT, Iraq.
Unfortunately, I think Washington has backed itself into a corner on Saddam. Henry Kissinger has been saying that at this point we really have no choice but to hit Iraq hard if he doesn't comply; otherwise Us credibility suffers a disastrous hit. I think he's right. Because of our bellicose talk. (It would have been much better to say ..."OK, no inspections, no oil sales, except de minimus amounts for medicine. We will distribute the medicine, not you. You want more, allow inspections as we demand. Otherwise, we will embargo you until hell freezes over. AND, the US is prepared to SINK any ship of whatever nationality the ignores the embargo. AND the US will veto any attempt to vote any lifting of its provisions." Much better.
By the way, I said Washington, rather than the Administration, has backed itself into a corner, on purpose. Until recently Republican leaders have been even more bellicose than the Administration. Now they are quickly backpedaling, trying to position themselves to criticize the failure many now foresee post bombing. Cause the hotheaded knee jerk reaction doesn't work.
Basically, while one can certainly wait too long when confronting a diabolical dictator with dreams of domination, (Saddam, as a Hitler writ small), one can also act too early.
Now I think is too early. At least for US interests. MAYBE not for Israel's.
The likely result of hitting Saddam is at least going to be great press play of the civilian casualties, lots of doubt about the real affect, and a real coalescence of the ever brewing American resentment/hatred towards the US.
Worst case, Israel is drawn into hitting Iraq. Worst of all would be if Israel is vastly disproportionate -- say it gets some chemical hits that in the end kill 100 Israelis. Israel responds with a single nuclear bomb in downtown Bagdad that kills 500,000. The world will be in an unimaginable uproar against Israel and all who support such an act. (Whereas a proportionate response that merely killed 5 or 10x as many Iraqis, or took out lots of palaces, would have the opposite effect, with Saddam widely vilified, and even only somewhat supported within the Arab world, I imagine.)
If Israel unleashed a big one, then what is the US gonna do???? Arabs are likely to do anything to get Soviet protection. The Russians are likely to offer it. Russia retains a massive nuclear arsenal, if little else. US interests in the area would be massively hurt as Washington moves to support Israel. Meanwhile, tensions in America over support for Israel would become extremely divisive. Etc., etc. There are a whole lot of hornets' nests. And frankly, I don't trust the current Netanyahu Likud coalition gov't of Israel to act in Israel's long term interests, much less with any consideration of the interests of its ally, the United States.
Doug |
