Current Events — HabitableZone

Current Events » in reply to "It was never a question of a known, imminent threat; it was about an unwillingness to risk surprise."

So what were, and are, the alternatives?
TB — (archived)

Go over that list of Saddam's past actions, and tell me that his regime was "stable." In 2002, Iran was already working on nuclear systems.

The Duelfer Report stated Saddam was ready to restart WMD research as soon as the heat was off, and back then sanctions were widely blamed for thousands of dead Iraqi civilians. How much longer would the "heat" have been on?

If invasion was taken off the table back then, at some point during the inspections, it was going to become obvious that the U.S. wasn't actually going to DO anything, and that the surrounding military eventually was going to go home. Followed, no doubt, in short order by the inspectors.

Iran learned more quickly that without a credible threat, that you can just shove your WMD programs in the U.N.'s eye. What you are seeing in Iran now is a textbook example of the "let it be, 'soft power'" theory.

It's comforting to think that if we had just stayed out of Iraq, everything would be nice and quiet now. I doubt that's the case.

We could explore alternatives to invasion, as well as alternatives to rebuilding Iraq after Saddam was taken out of the picture in 2003. None of them are simple.

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