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

To: carranza2 who wrote (119079)	11/10/2003 10:48:09 AM
From: Sun Tzu	Read Replies (5) \| Respond to of 281500

ok, then take your pick: either Saddam was an imminent threat that justified the rush to invasion, or he was not in which case the invasion was not justified under the pretext that he was a threat (or at least we had time to debate the issues better). Which is it? Now on to your questions: > Was Saddam a threat to the fragile stability of the region? Firstly, the Persian Gulf is not an externally unstable region. Various regimes may come and go, but other than Iraq none had invaded another one in a very very long time. Secondly, Saddam did not have the capability to be a threat to anyone. So even if your wrong hypothesis was correct, the answer would remain negative. > Do you really argue that he was not? I just did. If you are disputing this, then explain to me whom exactly was Saddam a threat to and how? But try to stay to fact and not if-then-fantasies. > Do you really argue that the proven breakdown in sanctions and containment was going to self-repair? (a) first you must state what the goals of the sanctions were before you can argue they were broken. Inasmuch as the sanctions had weakened Iraq beyond the ability to invade anyone and had even allowed the Kurds to have their own autonomous region, the sanctions were successful. (b) Assuming the sanctions were broken, show me how war was the only answer and that alternative solutions could not succeed. > Or that Saddam was going to grow wings and a halo? No but he wasn't going to live forever either. I've seen reports that he had some form of cancer. But even without it, many dictatorships changed for the better once the dictator died. Why would this have been different in Iraq?