Oh God, please, not subtlety!!! I’m used to Neo Cons with black and white reality, not shades of grey and textures.
Anyway, regarding Iraq, I believe the UN had a right, and a responsibility to deal with Iraq. I believe the UN utterly failed in this case. In fact, I believe the UN is pretty much an abject failure in many ways, and this situation is typical. The UN has become a forum for despots to air anti-American grievances in a very real way. Go back and read the UN Charter and it becomes obvious that the UN has either lost it’s way, or abandoned it’s purpose. Either way, it F-ed up big time in dealing with Saddam.
As most of us are parents here, let me ask you what happens if you continualy threaten your kid with punishment, yet consistantly fail to follow through? The kid learns your threats are meaningless, and ignores them, right? Sound familiar? At some point, you have to take the toy away, put them in Time out, turn off the TV, or whatever. Same thing with the UN.
Here’s the however… just cuz the UN should have gone in there, doesn’t mean the responsibility falls to us once the UN fails.
If the UN resolutions were the reason behind the war, then Bush should have prosecuted the war through the UN. Skilled diplomacy and sensitive handling of other nations interests could have pulled it off. Bush’s father could have done it. Dubya decided to go it alone. He made it clear we were going to war even if noone went along with us. That fits the definition of unilateral. Tony Blair decided to find some balls, as did a couple dozen other nations. We could very easily have found ourselves stuck in Mesopotamia all alone. We still would have won the war. But it all makes the occupation that much harder.
If the reasoning behind the war was 9/11, then the Bush administration acted on a lie. Iraq wasn’t tied to 9/11 in any way, that much is obvious now.
The whole WMD thing is nebulous. As an argument in and of itsself, it fails. However, we know Saddam had them at one point, and used them in combat against his own people, as well as the Iranians. So to deny their existence is naive. Yet to prosecute a war based on inflated claims that can’t be backed up is wrong, plain and simple. Yes, there is a glorious and wonderful history of trumped up events that lead to war, from the Maine to the Gulf of Tonkin. It doesn’t make any of it right.
The argument that Iraq was a terrorist node is valid. Iraq was funding and suppoting terrorism, and Iraq is one of about half a dozen states that can be construed as real terrorist threats. This line of reasoning in my oppinion makes a very valid case for the war against Iraq. The Bush administration chose not to make this argument.
In any event, there exists a greater argument for war against North Korea, and Saudi Arabia…. Maybe even Syria and Iran than Iraq. We went to war with Iraq because Wolfowitz is stuck in 1991, and Dubya decided to listen to him.
To re-iterate
Yes, the UN should have gone to war, but didn’t. This represents a failure of the UN on a huge scale.
The failure of the UN to go to war doesn’t justify an American unilateral decision to invade Iraq.
The Bush administration put together a shoddy case for war based on crappy intelligence. And I’m giving Dubya and his cronies the benefit of the doubt here. A legit case COULD have been made for war in the framework of a global war on terror, but it wasn’t.
Saddam was a bad man, but there are many other bad men running bad nations. Many of whom are probably greater threats to the US. The fact that Saddam’s regime was brutal, evil, and a threat, doesn’t single him out as a target for war.
