>>>>I think the whole legal authority for the 'no fly zones' was wrapped in that and that included more thoroughgoing intervention.
>>>>
>>>>But of course international 'authorization' - like God - is on the side of the most artillery <s>
>>>>
>>>
>>>In this case it wasn't. France and Germany (most prominently) would not go along with UN authorization unless and until WMDs were found. When they were not found soon enough to suit the Bush administration, the U.S. invaded unilaterally.
>>>
>>>In hindsight -- which of course is always easy -- I think the "go slow" nations were proven wise.
>>
>>The 'go slow' nations were taking the stand that there was more money to be made in corruption of the "Oil for food" program and if push came to shove they always had the US and Israeli military to protect them from the consequences of Saddam really going off the rails.
>
>You know I respect your knowledge of global politics, not to mention history, so I will give this more credence than I normally would. Do you really think Saddam was a threat to us or to Europe? What might he have done if he had gone off the rails? From my layman's perspective it seems like he was pretty well occupied, and perfectly satisfied, just hanging onto his power and money in Iraq. Didn't the long, unsuccessful war with Iran and the unsuccessful invasion of Kuwait disabuse him of any notions of being even a regional power? Or is that exactly what made him unstable and dangerous?

I think that *is* exactly what made him unstable and dangerous. I think he was going to ride out the sanctions, use his billions to buy what he needed - probably from North Korea - to supplement what he either already had or knew how to get his hands on quickly. If you have multiple billions at your disposal any kind of arms are not a problem... probably more than most people realize.

The instability, I believe, was going to come from one of 2 sources - he was going to make chemical or biological weapons or the technology available to people who would use it in some destabilizing fashion and / or he was going to look threatening enough that Israel was going to attack Iraq. Either one would be mean a very wide ranging and destabilizing conflict.

Now, would that have been worse than what we have now? I think probably. Once Israel became involved it would be very hard to keep the whole region from blowing up instead of just what is inside Iraq's borders.

I don't think there were a lot of good choices and I don't thing we know what other factors may have factored into deciding this couldn't wait. (though personally I think it might have been worth waiting until there was sufficient planning and arrangements for the "then what?" )

That said, I am still stunned by what I think was the ineptitude of the post-fall of Baghdad period. I've read the books by Treynor and a lot of other and I have to say the degree to which a whole lot of things were apparently not thought through really is pretty amazing and disappointing.

But the problem with any decision to act is you only see the consequences of the action without really knowing what the consequences would have been of inaction. So the debate is difficult, because the choice isn't between what we have now in Iraq and a perfect world, but to make a proper comparison we need to know what 2008 would look like with Saddam or one of his mad sons in power, sanctions off, and perhaps their competing with Iran for influence in the region - possibly by funding/supplying Hamas to match Iran's support of Hezbolloh.

Tricky stuff.