Bush was wrong/right...part 2.
Well, I guess a few people read my ramblings, so, I'll explain why I think it was the right thing to do to get rid of Saddam.
Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction, but, he wanted them badly. He was telling everyone, even his own generals that were the guys that should be using them, that he had WMD. Every major intelligence agency on the planet thought he had stockpiles. These are facts, not my opinion. As Mickey Kauss pointed out, if a guy says he has a gun, says he's going to shoot it, then points it at someone, the cops have every right to shoot him dead...even if the "gun" turned out to be a bar of soap. So, prewar, that is my opinion of the situation. He said he had WMD, indicated he would use them, actually had used them in the past and was too dangerous to not believe.
But, let's say we took the diplomatic route instead. Through some miracle, France and Germany put more pressure on Saddam to cooperate with the inspectors and he capitulates and gives little Hans Blix free run of the country. Blix would have reported back to the US and UN that there were no weapons, no factories to produce them, no evidence of plans to produce them. Then, the only logical thing for the UN to do would have been to praise Saddam for coming back into the fold and lift the sanctions.
After that, I see three divering paths.
1. Saddam gets to refill his banks with lots of new investments and oil money. He has free reign to brutalize the country and he immediately begins creating new weapons...without anyone bothering him. Because the US had troops in Saudi Arabia, Saddam would "Islamicize" his government to consolidate power. He would then continue to support Palestinian terrorists and probably welcome Osama with open arms, giving him the weapons he wants to attack the US again. I'd say that would have been a three to five year plan.
2. Iran, seeing that Saddam is weak and needing a diversion from the internal strife it has, seeks a nationalistic diversion by rekindling the war with Iraq. Iran is much stronger than Iraq and defeats Saddam, thus becoming a veritable middle east super-power. Other Arab countries fear this and request US help. The US then becomes engaged with "containing" a much stronger military foe with vast oil wealth that the French, Germans and Russians can't ignore, since they fear US hegemony. We have another new world order, with European nuclear powers siding with Iran - another version of the cold war begins. While this may not take place completely in the open - ie, France and Germany working behind closed doors - it could have easily played out this way.
3. Saddam miraculously comes to his senses and realizes that it is fun to be a rich dictator and that there is no reason to continue pissing off the US, other than continued support for the Palestinians. The world is a peaceful place, except for Israel - which eventually gets tired of all that crap and drops a few nukes around the middle east to make a point.
No matter what, it is hard to see Iraq pulling a Libya and trying to become a legitimate state.
Many people argue that we didn't take into account the Iraqi people. I disagree. A quick war with a weak country cost far less lives in the long run than any of the above scenarios. I also feel that the Iraqi people themselves are partly responsible for the situation. Regardless of how brutal the regime, revolution is always an option. The Iraqi people had neither the will nor desire to overthrow Saddam. We had to do it for them. While I feel badly for the innocents that died, that is simply the cost of thier inaction.
Another thing I'm tired of hearing is how President Bush squandered the worlds good will after 9/11. BULLSHIT. The main French newspaper, Le Monde, is credited with the 9/12 headline "We Are All Americans." But, even in that article, there were the inklings of the "it's America's own fault" line of thinking. Check out this great post for a complete explanation.
There, I've done it. Now those few of you who actually read this crap have the explanation. I'm still shocked that anyone even found this blog, let alone read it. Thanks.
posted by Chris Farley @ 6:26 PM
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