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

To: KyrosL who wrote (136374)	6/12/2004 1:48:37 PM
From: carranza2	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

What is so different from a Saddam with nukes from one without them? The question almost answers itself. Nukes give Saddam freedom of action because no country will put its armies in harm's way to stop his ambitions if it knows that they will suffer nuclear devastation. He could have therefore been free to take over Kuwait, Qatar, and ultimately Saudi Arabia. It's all brilliantly described in Pollack's book. Did you read it? Of course, Saddam should know that he would also suffer nuclear devastation if he ever used nukes. Emphasis on the word "should" because Saddam was irreversibly insane, and a taker of risks no one would rationally take. In short, a madman with nukes who could have changed the face of the ME if he had the means to do so. Nukes would have given him the means. You ready for $125 oil? A Saddam enrichened by huge oil profits, free to buy even more weapons ? A severe Depression in the West? It is easy to pooh-pooh this kind of thinking because the threat was not a "here and now" kind of thing but in the future. And it's hard to get Americans excited about future threats. We are obese, myopic and complacent, happy with the way things are, fattened by the Golden 90s.