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

To: LindyBill who wrote (35233)	7/29/2002 2:44:01 PM
From: JohnM	Respond to of 281500

So It looks like it is useless to discuss this subject here. Well, Bill, I think you are too convinced of your own position and too convinced of mine. I posted my views as of this moment, based on what I know; tomorrow is a new day with new information. As for whether I would listen to information from the Bush administration, of course, I would. I suspect I tend to see it as more political than you do but I find it helps to bring it out here. I have seen two strong arguments against my present view; the Pollack article in FA and the New Yorker piece on the use of wmd against the Kurds and the postulated new links between al Qaeda and Saddam. I took that information into account as I came up with my containment view. I would be more than happy to discuss why that leaves me at containment and what might happen to move me more in your direction. Frankly, I see this as a very complicated multivariable chess game in which the location of the pieces is not even clear. And any given move needs to consider several moves down the line, i.e. the consequences of any policy action.

To: LindyBill who wrote (35233)	7/30/2002 1:26:15 AM
From: Bilow	Respond to of 281500

Hi LindyBill; Re: "Even if you believed he had them, most of you, from what I read here, would be against stopping him then because you are not convinced he would use them. So even if you were convinced he had them, you would still oppose attacking him." No, if Saddam had nukes, the US wouldn't be considering attacking him at all. It's all about nuclear nonproliferation. Once a nation obtains a credible nuclear detergent, it's immune to attacks from the US (and fluffy in the bargain). The 3rd world knows this, that's why they're working, behind the scenes to get nukes. Pakistan and India got em, got chastised for it, but eventually forgiven. That proves that the US will ignore nuclear nonproliferation principles when other diplomatic considerations apply. The lesson is very clear. Get your nukes, put up with US sanctions for a decade or so, and obtain permanent immunity from US attack. Or do you have any examples of nuclear powers that the US has directly (as compared to opposed in a proxy war) attacked? We sunk most of Iran's navy. Naturally, they want nukes. Egypt, undoubtedly afraid of Israel, saw how nukes gave Pakistan immunity from US attack and now they want some. Of course the rogue states all have to have them. As I mentioned before (see #reply-17638405 ), nuclear weapons will proliferate with the same pattern that every other preeminent weapons technology ever seen on the planet has. There's not a damn thing the US can do about it, except figure out how to adjust our foreign policy to account for it. -- Carl