[jaguar]

Nice fairytale, I’d love some of what the author has been smoking.

UT for a start, this isn't the first time the US has 'blatantly invaded' somewhere else. So as a justification for waging war, its pretty damn weak. Secondly, that was 10 years ago. Thirdly if you want to get into obeying UN resolutions I’m waiting for the bombing is Israel to start, which arguably is a far greater threat to world and regional security than Iraq could ever be.

If the US cannot justify its actions to the international community and openly defies international law it creates a precedent for other countries to do so and really, undermines all diplomatic forward movement in recent time, if the US ignores international law, why should anyone else obey it? I’m sure you can see the obvious consequences for that. Secondly if the US sets out to render the UN powerless by ignoring them they will for all intents and purposes kill the UN, the result of that would be equally messy, if not more so. It leaves us in a situation with no safely checks, pressure valves, methods of enacting diplomacy, channels for avoiding conflict or opening discussion, setting us back to pre league of nations times.

Even if it can find some evidence to justify an invasion (lets cut the 'regime change' shit and call a war a war) the short and long term effect will be to destabilizes the region and create more hatred for the US. As has been demonstrated many times recently, the people of Iraq might not like Saddam but they sure as hell don't like the US either. Of course links to Al Queda have been found - in the Us's allies, the Kurds.