"Yet I am constantly informed here that if Saddam were still running Iraq, the Middle East would be stable and non-threatening forever."

The middle east has never been non-threatening since the west outgrew its ability to prodiuce all the oil it needs- so thats a straw man.

However, if things were status-quo-ante-bellum now, there is no possible way that you could argue that that would be 'less stable' than now, not if you want to adhere to all the contemporary definitions of 'sane'.

As a direct result of our actions, the middle east is now far more unstable than at any point in the last couple of decades. We can posit fantasy worlds and fantasy scenarios by which the status quo ante bellum could have resulted in instability and argue from that case (as your playbook entails). However, that contingent universe has to include also at least the possibility that we could have developed any number of 'fantasy solutions' to deal with those fantasy contingents.

If I have screwed up a project at work due to the project decisions and manpower allocations to goals that I devised for that project, I don't go to my boss and say 'well, just think of how bad things could have been if I didn't enact these decisions'. In the real world we have to judge things pragmatically and by the results that are solicited. The results solicited by the 'Invade Iraq while we are engaged in afghanistan, eschew diplomatic action, thumb our noses at our allies and talk tough' idea set have solicited absolutely horrible results.

I understand that you hve an endless well of mostly circular arguments, an arsenal of clumsy broad brushes and 10 gallon drum of straw-man arguments and red herrings that you can unload on us.

However. You can stand on the deck of the titanic arguing about how the particular design and fabrication technologies employed prevent the sinking of the ship, about how the captain really didn't do anything wrong, about how the decision to deploy the ship with a smaller life raft capacity than passenger capacity was a valid call, about how theoretically it should be entirely possible to breathe seawater in a fantastical contingent universe. You can argue and argue and argue. You can emply very convincing rhetorical devices. You can sound very intelligent while you do it.

But, at some point, the icy seawater will simply drown you out. Reality trumps rhetoric every time. And that is the point we have reached. This is why I don't really argue as much with you as I used to. The ship has already sank. We are already in the drink, and I'm more concerned about not drowning than I am about debating the issue with you, Anne Coulter, Michelle Malkin, Rush Limbaugh, George Bush, Dick Cheney, Bill O'Reilly etc etc etc.

You all can go to Davey Jones Locker believing what you believe. But I want me and my shipmates to make it back to shore. Quite fankly, you are less than useless for that task, because you are still telling me what an awful fate we would have suffered if the Titanic had not been constructed the way it was constructed, had not sailed the course it had sailed, or had not hit that Ice Burgh. You are still telling me the 'good news from the middle of the north atlantic', and trying to shout down the hollering of all the other people trying to figure out how to get out of the ocean. You are pissing about how the few people out there who are trying to organize a solution are spreading liberal media lies.

So, like I said. Wose than useless.