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

To: jcky who wrote (53671)	10/21/2002 1:39:20 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Respond to of 281500

It is also interesting to observe how the Bush administration is handling the North Korea situation. There is a signal of diplomatic maturity in which I did not notice with Iraq. Perhaps, they have learned from their Iraqi fiasco because I find there is a more coordinated, coherent, and concerted effort to handle Pyongyang; whereas, the campaign waged against Saddam was ill-conceived to begin with. Or maybe, this administration has little choice but to consult with South Korea, Japan, China, and Russia because of the limited foreign policy options. Getting warmer with that last bit, jcky. Talk is what you do when you can do nothing but talk; it is easy to behave with "diplomatic maturity" when you and everybody else is following the course of least resistance and no choice! When you want to break out of the established channel of talk and move to action, then it requires behavior considerably more forceful than the shared verbiage commonly described as "diplomatic maturity"

To: jcky who wrote (53671)	10/22/2002 10:04:59 AM
From: carranza2	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

I'm presently reading the post-Gulf War history, 1991-1996, and I'm afraid it confirms everything I had thought. Saddam clearly must go. If Saddam's plot to assassinate Geo. H.W. Bush had succeeded, would there be any reason to think that it was not a cassus bellum? Pollack describes an instance during the '91-'96 period when Saddam moved his troops to Southern Iraq into positions from which he could have easily re-invaded Kuwait. According to Pollack, Saddam's intentions at the time have not been determined, and it is possible that he actually intended to re-invade Kuwait. At the time, our ground forces were insufficient to deter him. It was only after a hard air hammering that he desisted. I had forgottten about the incident, which was not heavily publicized. In any event, Saddam's pattern is to test, test, and test again. He has not given up his dream of becoming the ME hegemon in charge of the bulk of the world's oil supplies. To those who say "But what about post-Iraq?", I say "Which do you prefer? Oil at $75 a bbl or another failed ME state?"