Bush Gored!

[hermit22]

The best points made here were the ones that looked at the whole region's security and didn't focus on the single-minded goal of Iraq.

There are several problems I see with the whole Iraq invasion idea. First, it's going to infuriate the region. It's going to stoke the flames of anti-Americanism that our relative inaction on Israel/Palestine (and other actions) sparked. This could very easily lead to the toppling of some pro-American governments; namely Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. (Egypt's been headed down that path ever since Nasser left office.) You don't fuck with people that hold the keys to your economic stability.

Second, Iraq has made no move of attack on the United States or any of its allies. Even the hawks stopped trying to link Hussein to September 11th because there just wasn't the evidence to do so. Some will say that Hussein's promise of money to the families of Palestinean suicide bombers constitutes such an attack, but it does not. It has been a relative non-issue in this debate, and that would be like saying American assistance in helping Afghan or Nicaraguan or any other fighters in the Cold War constituted an attack on the Soviet Union.
Now, without an attack, there is no legal (according to international law that we not only signed but helped write) recourse to attack him. That's where Bush's whole pre-emption doctrine comes in. The problem with that is it gives any state anywhere the right to do the same, as it has set the precedent. So what's to stop Pakistan from invading India to stop them from using WMD? Russia to take over Georgia? Or some other state with an even less valid reason?

Third, the administration has offered no plan of what this regime change is going to entail. Are they going to put the Shiites, who have strong ties to Iran up? (I might have been wrong, it might not be Shiites - but whatever group is the majority ethnicity.) Maybe the Kurds, another minority group, will rise to power. And how long are we going to stay to ensure the stability of the nation? It could very easily dissolve into civil war, and then there'd be more concerns, ie. al-Qaeda or some other operative gaining access to unguarded WMD.

Fourth, and this is the most shaky reason for going in and not going in, is the actual availability of WMD. Blair's report (I haven't read all of it, but I've gone through a good portion of it) unfortunately offered no real evidence. But then again, Hussein's history has shown that he is hungry for these toys. So that one's a toss-up.

Fifth, if we can't convince the rest of the world and just go it alone (with England's support, of course), then we risk upsetting the order of the entire international system. We will be completely rebuffing the UN (which wouldn't be the first time, but it would be the most glaring example of it) and it would spread an imperialistic image of the nation. The French paper Le Monde compared it to the US's imperialistic tendencies at the beginning of the 20th century. This could upset the authority of the UN, further enrage our allies in Western Europe (and possibly give the EU a better stand in world affairs, which could then upset the balance of power) and kill our credibility on the war on terrorism in places like Pakistan.

I'm fine with going into Iraq to punish Hussein for violating UNSC resolutions. But that would require the backing of at least the security council, and hopefully a good percentage of the general assembly. It would also require assistance from a coalition, even if its not as broad as the one in 1991 or 2001. Any way we spin this, it's going to be incredibly difficult to get some of the conservative sections of the Arab world on our side, but this is the only viable path that I can see, Ann Coulter's laughable reccomendations aside.

What I'm not fine with is the fact that this seems like GW getting back at Hussein for his dad, or trying to set up an Arab oil colony. The second is obviously more far-fetched than the first, and even that one is by some means a stretch. But that doesn't make it invalid.