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

To: Win Smith who wrote (53163)	10/19/2002 11:31:09 AM
From: Brumar89	Respond to of 281500

..I could not help reflecting that in 1947 a stronger case than his could have been made that the least risky course for dealing with Stalin following World War II would have been to invade the Soviet Union and depose the tyrant before he could acquire nuclear weapons. Wrong here. Invading the Soviet Union and deposing the government would have been a vastly more daunting, perhaps impossible, task due to the vast size of the country. But his(Saddams) bluff could be called, since he would avoid using nuclear weapons or supplying them to terrorists unless he was attacked directly and was convinced that his end was imminent. Whole lot of assumption here - bad assumption IMO. Saddam's "bluff" was called before the start of the Gulf War. But he chose not to back down in the face of forces that were sure to defeat him. Furthermore, once defeat was imminent he still struck back in revenge by setting almost all the Kuwaiti oil wells afire. Future revenge actions by a nuclear armed Saddam might involve nuking the Saudi oil fields - one nuke would shut them down. And what would do we do then? There would be no invading Iraq if it had nukes. Only two choices would remain - do nothing or nuke Baghdad.

To: Win Smith who wrote (53163)	10/19/2002 12:52:03 PM
From: JohnM	Read Replies (7) \| Respond to of 281500

'The Threatening Storm' Warns That an Attack on Iraq Is Dangerous and Necessary nytimes.com; Thanks for posting this, Win. The arguments make a great deal of sense. I thought these points were particularly telling. 1. As I was reading Pollack's dismissal of deterrence as a viable strategy, I could not help reflecting that in 1947 a stronger case than his could have been made that the least risky course for dealing with Stalin following World War II would have been to invade the Soviet Union and depose the tyrant before he could acquire nuclear weapons. Yet deterrence worked, even though the danger to the United States from a nuclear-armed Soviet Union was incomparably greater than the one that could be posed by a nuclear-armed Saddam Hussein. 2. Pollack offers a compelling argument that the United States must meet all these conditions if an invasion is to succeed without creating equal or greater dangers. He has set the bar very high, and it is doubtful that any United States administration could clear it. The idea that Congress would be willing to finance a long occupation of Iraq and appropriate billions of dollars for Iraq's reconstruction at a time of recession and rising budget deficits seems irresponsibly optimistic. So is the idea that the United States and its allies would be capable of creating a prosperous, free, democratic nation out of Iraq's fractured and critically injured society. 3. ''The Threatening Storm'' is a timely and important contribution to the current debate. It deserves a wide readership, if only (but not only) because it demolishes certain myths that some proponents of invasion have cultivated. If the Bush administration proceeds to mount an invasion to remove Saddam Hussein without meeting all of the conditions Pollack specifies, only an improbable streak of luck will stave off a more serious terrorist threat to American lives and property. And even if Pollack's conditions are met, the risks of invasion may be greater than he believes.