Well, truth be told, Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab created the Islamists. Like all fanatics, their complaint is not so much with the infidel as with the apostate. Strangely, we became their target when we got involved with a very secular struggle - the first Gulf War - and stationed troops in the land of the Hijaz.

I don't think the idea of taking care of the threat in Iraq was due to a misconception about Saddam's secularism. Saddam was Stalin. That was his model. But islamo-fascism (to borrow from Daniel Pipes) cannot be addressed until the lynchpin country is stable. When Iraq is secure, Syria (another secular nation) can be dealt with and we have 'leverage' with the Saudis. Hezbollah will crumble when the Mullahs are hanging from lampposts in Tehran. There are lots of Iranians making nooses as we speak.

We had no illusions about the French going in. Chirac is a known quantity. He sold Saddam the reactor the Israeli's destroyed over 20 years ago. Their stand against the invasion of Iraq was never a principled one and no one who knew anything about it believed it was.

The Islamists will be dealt with but from a strategic point of view there are many fronts on which it has to be approached. The children chanting "no WMDs" never understood what this was all about and never will. Fortunately the grownups do. Britain went with us because MI6 is still run by grownups and we get a lot of cooperation from the French DGSE and DRM because they protect France's real interests while the politicians sell their national security down the river. (there are parallels to 1939 that are both interesting and disturbing)

About WMDs. If a child finds the WMDs he holds a press conference and says "Oh look, oh look, mommy!" When the grownup finds them he bugs them, modifies them, and pops a keyhole satellite over them - and takes the political hit. Think about it.

Regarding Syria - they got the message. We took Iraq about as easily as Iraq took Kuwait - and in a war - Iraq would have kicked Syria's butt.

Libya *definitely* got the message.

>The fact is
>The Neo-con miscalculated where they thought if the stand firm the whole world will follow and Dubya saw glory of getting rid of teh grazy Islamists by attacking a secular state. by the way we all know who created those Islamists.
>
>As of today, I pray taht Iraq will stabilize soon and whomever win the election will find a good exit stategy from Iraq.
>
>Then, let's kick Syria's derrier lol
>
>Mo
>
>>And
>>
>>Saddam had money - enough to buy the Chirac government, the UN officials administering oil for food, and sweeten the Russians and Chinese. But more importantly - he had the money to *buy* a nuke - from N Korea most likely, rogues in Pakistan or Russia possibly. If there was even a whiff of that Israel would melt Baghdad into a sheet of glass. Anyone who can't figure that out doesn't understand they dynamics of the region.
>>
>>The justification for the war had to be reduced to bumper sticker size so it would fit into the 20 seconds of attention the average american gives to foreign policy, but for the neo-cons who pushed for it, Kenneth Pollack laid it out as a very compelling case, and the strategic arguements were compelling.