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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: carranza2 who wrote (18996)	2/16/2002 3:57:37 PM
From: tekboy	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Nixon did deliberately play the game you're talking about, but I'm not sure of the theorist you're referring to who supposedly originated the strategy. Perhaps you're thinking of Herman Kahn, who came up with lots of similar stuff, or maybe Thomas Schelling... It's possible that this is what is going on with Saddam, since none of us are inside his head. But this is where the "judgment" stuff comes in. Pollack's a smart guy who has been living intimately with the problem of interpreting Saddam's moves for more than a decade--at the CIA during the Gulf War, as an academic writing a dissertation on Arab military behavior, as a thinktanker analyzing ME politics, and most recently as the person in charge of U.S. policy toward the Gulf at the NSC. I'm inclined to give his considered opinion about Saddam more credibility than just about anybody else's. Let it be said once again, however, that this is a matter of interpretation rather than fact, and Pollack's expertise does not mean he can't be wrong. tb@caveatemptor.com