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

To: Ron who wrote (147500)	10/10/2004 11:54:29 AM
From: Michael Watkins	Respond to of 281500

The administration certainly is trying to recast its rationale for going to war... its been doing that with each revelation over the last 18 months. The most surprising thing heard this week is this attempt to suggest that sanctions would never work. In a post 9/11 world, saying sanctions would never work is like Bush saying "I promise that I am going to take my eye off the ball". That isn't credible. Sanctions and containment would be made to work. Period. What's more, without a two year distraction, countless billions, thousands of lives lost, historical alliances damaged, all in the misguided war on Saddam, the world has lost an opportunity to focus all that effort on the real war on terror. Even this last 60 days terrorists around the world are demonstrating that they are not bottled up in Iraq but are everywhere. You have Islamist terrorists blowing up other Muslims in Pakistan. Bombings in Egypt. A huge attack in Beslan (which has not been proved to involve "international muslim terrorists" by the way). Bombings of trains in Spain. Attacks in Indonesia. And on it goes. Real leadership would have been to put in place a long term workable solution to contain Iraq. Bush had an opportunity to take his leadership and do something dramatic there - the approach would have been a model for use against other failed states. Alliances and resources would have remained in place to then pursue other avenues in this fight, instead of stretching the military - but also the people's will - though a war justified by deception. Bush blew it.