The war in Iraq and the toppling of Saddam is supposed to change the behavior of other leaders in the region. While I have little doubt that the war will have some effect, I wonder what that effect will be. Is it possible that someone might reason as follows?
1. The USA accused Saddam of having WMD;2. President Bush offered to allow Saddam to remain in power if he disarmed by destroying WMD;
3. Saddam had no WMD to destroy;
4. The USA then invaded Iraq and toppled Saddam’s regime;
5. If Saddam had had WMD and renounced them, he could have stayed in power;
6. I wish to stay in power;
7. If the USA turns its sights on me, I better have some WMD to destroy.
Dwight--
SADDAM had other reasons for playing this game; recall that he played poker with a Bush before, and won... He felt that conceding he actually REALLY HAD NO WMDs would lead regional players (Iran comes to mind, as does... Israel) to perceive him as weaker, and take advantage of the situation, or worse, it might possibly allow some kind of coup attempt or something else... best to keep that illusion alive. He played the hand out one round too long, and lost. He should have done something UNEXPECTED, and let the weapons inspectors report FULL AND TOTAL cooperation-- not executing some scientists for achange. Had that happened, there was nothing Bush and Blair could do-- Bush having shown a weak hand already by going to the UN, would have had to FOLD (just like his Daddy before him) against Saddam's inside kangaroo straight.
Saddam outsmarted himself on that one, and hopefully, a legitimate Iraqi government or international tribunal will bring him to justice.
But-- your logic is flawless as goes the OTHER members of the "Axis of Evil", Iran and North Korea: they have CORRECTLY reasoned that they had better get their hands on WMDs as fast as humanly possible, to rebuff this wild man from invading THEM. A war to, ahem, prevent the spread of nasty mega-destructive weapons has encouraged the acceleration of their development by one of the most unstable regimes in the world (NK) and by by our State Department's NUMBER ONE ON THE LIST OF TERRORIST SPONSORS, good old Iran.
But at least we got Libya to give up its (nonexistent) WMD program, right? So the preemptive war policy must have been a complete and total success.
Posted by: the talking dog at January 27, 2004 05:17 PM