Replies to post #371 on Zeev's Turnips Talk Politics (ZTTP)

[brightness]

IMHO, because we do not have a shield against tactical nuclear weapon yet, the attainment of such weapon (tac nuke) by exporters of strategic resources should be avoided. Of course I would prefer full inspection as the solution; however given Saddam's track record, I'm not optimistic. It is much better to take him out now than try to take him out after he attains tac nuke. To the extent that the US then would be able to station troops in a friendly Iraq, instead in the kingdom that is also custodian to Mecca, I think the result would be rather reduced tension with the Muslims of the middeast, who obviously do not like the idea of Christian soldiers in Saudi Arabia. I doubt scorched earth orders would be carried out in Iraq proper even if Saddam issues such orders.

[goodluck]

JB,
Your comment, "With possibly 2 million Arabs dead I expect much anger to ensue in the Muslim world and we might not like the consequences" hits it on the head. It isn't that Saddam is wonderful, it isn't that the US wouldn't "win" a military confrontation with Iraq fairly quickly, at least in terms of controlling Bagdhad and a few other parts of the country, it is the aftermath that is scary. The consequences of inflaming Arabs in other countries who already suppose that the US's intentions aren't friendly to them. We know for sure that Pakistan has nuclear weapons. We believe, at least, that there may be suitcase bombs somewhere in the hinterlands of the former Soviet Union, which includes many Islamic states which have no particular love for the West. What happens if radical Islamicists from those areas get ahold of nukes? Their motivation has become much stronger, not weaker, with Bush's ill-considered actions vis-a-vis Iraq. And the civil war that could explode in Iraq itself post-Saddam is scary. The Bush admin seems to believe that they can contain it. I doubt it will be contained any more than Lebonan was if Saddam is overthrown through a US war. Maybe for a year or two. Not much more.

I agree with Zeev when he says that their imagination has been weak. I don't blame them for trying to get weapons inspection. I don't even blame them for wanting regime change. But their tactics and their preferred means of getting them has been stupid and counter-productive in a longer term perspective. We want to try to deal with these matters in a way that is non-violent. We want to build those sorts of tactics and international pressures that will create the right sorts of precedents, not create the same old same old strategies that have been used for thousands of years--which amounts to "I'm bigger and stronger than you, you better do what I say." Applying pressure through the UN as well as through their "friends" who trade with them (Russia, France are the two biggest along with the US itself) would have been much better from the outset. The initiators and supporters of the current methods would argue that this would have been a failure. Perhaps. But it was never really applied in a concerted, public way. Even the sanctions are often honored in the breach. The Republicans tied the Clinton's administrations hands with their smear tactics--anything the latter would have done would have been loudly labelled a "Wag the Dog" strategy. The Bush admin never even tried it. They just use the "3000 dead" to justify doing whatever they want.

RE WMDs and US-Iraq: What exactly did the Reagan Admin think that Saddam was going to do with the WMDs that they sold Iraq in the 1980s? Buy them and destroy them? When they sold them to him, they gave him implicit permission to use them. I don't recall any great outcry about their usage back them. The Bushes keep saying that "Saddam used used them on his own people." Well, the Kurds may be part of Iraq, but they weren't and aren't "Saddam's own people". They were his enemies as much as the Iranians were.