This thread is the home of arguments about whether or not invading Iraq was a good idea, whether or not the US should attack Iran, whether or not hawkish foreign policies are wrong, etc.
The first seven or so comments were originally in response to this post, but I’ve moved them.
The Iranian regime executes homosexuals for the crime of being homosexual, and not just in isolated incidents, either. Advocating “containment and engagement” of this regime seems inconsistent with your statement that LGBTQ rights are “desperately important”. So desperately important that we should accept the conduct of the Iranians? Iran’s national leader informs us that there are no homosexuals in Iran – eliminationist rhetoric that not even the worst American fundamentalists indulge in. Even Phelps acknowledges the existence of homosexuality.
The logical rebuttal to this point, of course, would be to aver that the Iranians have always behaved this way and it isn’t in our power to change them – that we have to persuade them, over time, in the way that we’re theoretically persuading the Chinese to adopt market economics and human rights, via engagement. That would be a reasonable response, if that were true, but Iran has a strong secular component to its population and in the past was not oppressive towards homosexuals to the point of killing gay teenagers. Tehran was never San Francisco but it used to be possible to be quietly gay in Iran and not worry that you were going to die at the hands of the state.
Today, gay children worry about dying at the hands of the state. Shouldn’t you be voting for Clinton exactly because her policy advisors believe Iran to be an evil state that needs a regime change?
Because, gotta say, they kinda are.
The Iranian people themselves are fully capable of changing their regime – for one thing, they’re a democracy. The theocrats wield a lot of power, of course, but the Iranian people will probably take care of them on their own in the coming years. As we have proven to everyone paying attention, changing the regime for them will not improve their situation, but replace a bad one with another bad one.
Also, homosexuals in Iraq are under constant attack by local authorities and militia groups. So our little adventure didn’t do much for them, either.
US-centrist.
None of this is to say that Saddam Hussain wasn’t a monster. But our invasion has made things much worse.
Yugoslavia.
At some point, Saddam was going to die. Probably sooner rather than later. His sons were self-indulgent monsters with the bloodthirst but not the intelligence – they’d have died soon after their father passed.
At which point, Iraq would have been riven by violence that would have made what’s happened look like a tea party. Iran would have fueled either a complete takeover of the country by theocratic Islamic fascists (similar to what’s happened in their own country) or simply helped set up a client state. Sunnis would have been slaughtered, and God knows what would have happened to the Kurds; maybe they’d have been sprayed with more human insecticide, maybe they’d have been invaded by Turkey to prevent Kurdistan from being created, with possible under-the-table help from Russia and Iran, who have their own problems with Kurdish minorities in the area.
Think I’m wrong? Maybe. But history shows us that this outcome was certainly possible. What do you think would have happened? Looking down the road 10 years I figure that we’ve probably saved lives.
Iran is hell-bent on being able to produce fissionable material. Their President has sworn to wipe Israel off the map. They are clearly interested in not having a democratic, united Iraq next door. What do you think Iran’s plans are? What do you think will happen if they carry them out? What do you think an effective response will be?
Darfur is an awful situation. The slaughter of Christians and animists in the south by Islamic fascists from the north needs to be stopped. But I’m curious as to why you think that doing so is a higher priority and more in the interests of the U.S. than ensuring that Iraq doesn’t fall into chaos and ruin, with the attendant fallout. I’m also curious as to how you think it’s going to be resolved. It seems to me that the government and the militias they’ve raised are only going to be stopped by force. What Saddam Hussein and Kim Jong-Il have taught us is that those of their ilk will starve their subjects before giving up their dreams of conquest and their social objectives. If you want the U.S. to resolve Darfur, it seems to me that you’re still going to need a 100,000 troops to do it. So I don’t see how that improves things.
Finally; why do we need the U.S. in Darfur? Why doesn’t the U.N. handle this? Why isn’t there a coalition of the EU nations going in there to deal with it? What does it take to get someone else to do some heavy lifting? To take some responsibility?
Having said all of the above, I’d also agree with Kevin. I think that the theocratic regime currently in place in Iran is not going to be a long-term success and will be eventually changed by it’s subjects. However, Kevin, I think your picture is a little optimistic. Iran is not a democracy.
In a democracy, people can run for office without being banned from candidacy by an unelected body on the basis of their politics being unacceptable to the current rulers. In a democracy, there is no unelected organization that can overturn laws passed by the legislature on the basis of being at odds with a particular sect’s interpretation of religious belief. In a democracy, there is freedom of the press – and TV, and movies, and Internet access; in a democracy, there is no government body tearing down satellite dishes off of rooftops to control what people can see and hear.
The amount of change that the Iranian subjects can bring into being via elections and non-violently petitioning their government is quite limited. Iran does hold elections, but it is far from a democracy. I think that the Iranian public will eventually rid themselves of the current regime. I doubt that it will happen without bloodshed, unless they are willing to put up with a very long transition time. I am not in favor of invading the place, though.
Iran is a theocratic authoritarian state with some of the trappings of democracy. It is not likely that an election will ever overturn that (although an election + civil violence might well).
There is a difference between state-sponsored judicial killing and the action of private groups. The US government was not illegitimized by the existence and activities of the KKK; it would have been illegitimized if it had been Federal policy to execute blacks for the crime of being black. That is the difference between Iraq and Iran. When Iraq’s civil government becomes strong, it will be stopping the militias from that kind of behavior – not writing it into law.
Robert: if only we knew of some scientifically supported way to reduce bigotry (see chapter 2 for the answer), and a plausible way to start. Hint: attacking one’s country tends to have the opposite effect.
RonF: What do you think Iran’s plans are?
To survive. Haven’t I been harping on this for a while?
Otpor and company managed to remove Milosevic without a lot of blood.
When Iraq’s civil government becomes strong, it will be stopping the militias from that kind of behavior – not writing it into law.
What makes you say that? And when will it be strong — when it can make us leave, as their Parliament demands?
Your unstated assumption, and the one that torpedoes your argument, is that other alternatives (presumably “shock and awe” followed by invasion and occupation) are better for gay Iranians than containment and engagement. And that is just not readily apparent.
Whether or not Iran executes homosexuals, and whether or not the Iranian public generally likes their rulers, it is almost certain that they would despise and fight against anyone who attempted to invade their country. Heck, I wouldn’t be surprised if Iranian homosexuals would fight against us, as well.
This is fairly unsurprising. Look at the U.S.: How many people like Bush? Not a majority, to be sure. But how many people would stand by while we were invaded by Canada in order to remove him? Heck, what percentage of U.S. citizens would automatically trust a random citizen who’d been convicted of a random misdemeanor, over an illegal immigrant with no prior convictions? More than zero, to be sure. Nationalism is strong, powerful, scary, stuff.
That doesn’t automatically mean we SHOULDN’T invade Iran. But it does seem that there would need to be some pretty extraordinary circumstances to justify such an invasion. Whether or not we entered with the intent of helping the situation, they’re likely to hate us for a long time thereafter.
Given Iran’s apparent animosity towards Israel, and the effect of either a direct attack by Iran or the funneling of materials to a terrorist group who would then use nukes against Israel (no shortage of those, I think,) I find Iran’s desire to have nukes disturbing at the least. And in that light, the threat of a nuclear Iran could in theory justify a war. (I confess to a slight hope that Israel will preemptively bomb the enrichment operations–not because I think that preemptive bombing would be a good thing, but because I think it’s the least-worst option as compared either to a new nuclear state in the Middle East which is at least partially controlled by extremists, to the potential transfer of nuclear munitions to other less-controlled entities outside Iran, or to the insanely bad consequences of a US invasion.)
I doubt invading Iran would be a good idea. There are other methods of destabilizing their regime, however.
I agree that this was a possible scenario. But I don’t know how this scenario compares to the current scenario. After all, we’re not quite finished with our “tea party.” The extent to which Sunnis escape slaughter, and the future of the relationship between Turkey and the Kurds (and therefore Turkey and the West), is yet to be seen.
Moreover, I must confess that I have difficulty listening to apologists for the Bush administration saying we need to continue our Iraqi engagement due to concerns about Iran and the Kurds. These concerns should have been uppermost on our minds BEFORE WE INVADED IRAQ, as just about every knowledgeable person argued before the invasion.
The US had three points of leverage over Iran: First, for better or worse, we had Iraq. We didn’t have to like Saddam in order to maintain his threat. Second, we had Iranian bureaucracy. The mullahs were squandering the nation’s wealth and driving the economy into the ground just like the Soviet bureaucrats did. Third, we had time. The Iranian revolution was a generation ago, and most of the population has been born since then. They don’t remember the Shah’s oppression; they only remember the clerics’. These dynamics played to US advantage, as evidenced in Iranian elections of reformers.
But then the US started an endless – and widely opposed – war in the Mideast. In one bold stroke we removed the threat of Saddam, gave the Iranians a nationalistic reason to rally around the mullahs, and drove oil prices through the roof, thereby rescuing the Iranian state – and ever other oil-producing despot – from bankruptcy. (If only we had pulled this stunt in the 1980s we could have rescued the Soviet Union from collapse, too. Too bad the Reagan administration didn’t have a financial stake in keeping oil prices high.)
It is inevitable that whatever government gets installed in Iraq will be a client state of Iran. The US largely threw in the towel on this issue when it decided to continue training the Iraqi military even though the military is riddled with Shiite militiamen who were not under the control of Iraqi generals. (What policy analysts call “Plan B”.) Today’s Herald Tribune notes how the US is now basically in cahoots with Iran in seeking stability – not popular democracy – in Iraq.
Alas, it may now be too late for my proposed solution: Selling southern Iraq to Iran. No, not literally. But we’d organize a “loose confederation of regions” (a la Kosovo), and not oppose the installation of a pro-Iranian puppet regime in Basra (a la Syria’s relationship to Lebanon). In return, Iran would abandon its nuclear program, tone down the rhetoric about Israel, and normalize relations with the US. We’d do business with the Iranians much as we do business with the Saudis, and cajole the regimes to make democratic concessions over time. This plan may be ugly, but we’re likely to get all the ugly parts in any event; we might as well buy some face-saving stability as consolation.
What do you think Iran’s plans are?
I don’t know what Iran’s plans are. But if I were the head of state of Iran, I’d want nukes and I’d want them NOW. Not for aggressive use or even revenge use in the case of invasion, but for prevention. Iraq played (relatively) nice with the UN inspectors, stopped their WMD programs, etc. Look where it got them. North Korea told the world to find a handbasket and go straight to hell in it, exploded their nuke and has survived without an invasion. The message? The US won’t invade if you have something that could hurt them but if you don’t then they’ll consider your country their little plaything.
As a random person alive in 2008, I hope that Iran will not develop nuclear weapons. Every new nuke is another chance for someone crazier than Stalin to get ahold of a weapon that could destroy a city or worse. I don’t want Iran, North Korea, Russia, France, or the US to have nukes. But if Iran did develop them, I wouldn’t take that as definitive proof that they’re a bunch of crazed warmongers bent on conquering the world. (They might be, but the nuclear program or lack thereof is not proof of it.)
The extent to which Sunnis escape slaughter, and the future of the relationship between Turkey and the Kurds (and therefore Turkey and the West), is yet to be seen.
True!
Moreover, I must confess that I have difficulty listening to apologists for the Bush administration saying we need to continue our Iraqi engagement due to concerns about Iran and the Kurds.
I don’t offer justification for the Bush administration. What I do offer justification for is continuing the current efforts to build the Iraqi nation from the bottom up (which the authors of Amp’s link think is a bug – I think it’s a feature). The Iraqi government is taking longer than anyone liked to get it’s head out of it’s ass, but the extraction is taking place.
The US had three points of leverage over Iran: First, for better or worse, we had Iraq.
Yes, we had one of the worst despots in the world as a client state. Changing that wasn’t going to happen non-violently, especially when Saddam decided to starve his subjects rather than give in. But it’s changed, now. Supporting people like Saddam has cost us dearly; “Why does the supposed champion of freedom sponsor dictators in the Middle East, Asia and South America” was a very damning question, and not one that we were going to be able to change for free. Once Iraq is completely on it’s feet there’s going to be a lot of people in the ME who are going to say “Hey, if Iraq’s people are now citizens instead of subjects, what about us?” That should keep the Iranian hierarchy busy domestically, and will cut down on their dreams of empire.
Second, we had Iranian bureaucracy. The mullahs were squandering the nation’s wealth and driving the economy into the ground just like the Soviet bureaucrats did.
They still are. As far as the comparison to the old Soviet empire, see below.
Third, we had time. The Iranian revolution was a generation ago, and most of the population has been born since then. They don’t remember the Shah’s oppression; they only remember the clerics’. These dynamics played to US advantage, as evidenced in Iranian elections of reformers.
True to a point. Containment is very definitely a useful strategy to use against Iran. But there’s a difference between the old Soviet empire and Iran. There was very little evidence that the Soviets might explode in a paroxysm of irrational violence against us or others. I’m afraid we can’t say that about Iran.
But then the US started an endless – and widely opposed – war in the Mideast. In one bold stroke we removed the threat of Saddam, gave the Iranians a nationalistic reason to rally around the mullahs, and drove oil prices through the roof, thereby rescuing the Iranian state – and ever other oil-producing despot – from bankruptcy.
Iran is still in financial trouble. They’re exporting raw materials, but they’re having to import the finished product (gasoline, etc.) as they don’t have the refining capacity. And sounding the alarm against the evil Americans has lost it’s charms for rallying Iranian subjects.
It is inevitable that whatever government gets installed in Iraq will be a client state of Iran.
I don’t see this at all. I seriously doubt that Iraq will be a client state of Iran unless we pull out before the secular government can finish it’s job and abandon them.
Dianne said:
Iraq played (relatively) nice with the UN inspectors, stopped their WMD programs, etc.
Actually, they threw the UN inspectors out and refused to allow the UN to verify if they’d stopped their WMD programs or not. They defied and worked around the inspection programs and the sanctions and everything else. Look where that got them, indeed.
North Korea told the world to find a handbasket and go straight to hell in it, exploded their nuke and has survived without an invasion.
We’ll see how long they survive their populace eating grass in the winter. And their nuke fizzled, BTW.
Actually, they threw the UN inspectors out and refused to allow the UN to verify if they’d stopped their WMD programs or not.
Do you know of a good link for the history of WMD inspection in Iraq? My memory, which could be wrong, is that at various times Iraq obstructed, the US insisted that inspectors withdraw, or both. That is, they definitely both played games. However, Blix never found anything, AFAIK, and seemed to think that he was getting an honest view of what Hussein was up to. Certainly, Bush et al never found anything convincing after the invasion and all the “evidence” they came up with before hand turned out to be wrong or out and out faked.
We’ll see how long they survive their populace eating grass in the winter. And their nuke fizzled, BTW.
Personally, I’m hoping that they eat Beloved Leader before spring. But I’m not North Korean and no one asked me. And it is not at all clear to me that an invasion would improve the human rights situation in NK. It certainly had the opposite effect in Iraq.
By the standards of a US nuke, the NK nuke certainly fizzled. But it appears to have put out energy in the KT range, if random sources on the web are anything close to correct, which seems quite enough to be dangerous.
Dianne: I agree entirely; one of the main advantages of being a nuclear country is that the US can’t push you around as easily. And moreover, the “crazier you seem,” the more power you have, so long as you have the weapons (nukes) to go along with said “craziness.” (not implying that Iranians are crazy, but making a general observation about ability to threaten and bluster without the military backing to go with it.)
That said, while it’s blatantly obvious why Iran wants nukes, it’s also fairly obvious why we don’t want them to have nukes. There is really only one nuclear-capable country which is also run by a near-lunatic, and it’s not going so well. Say what you want abut the USA and Europe, but although our governments are often bad, and make bad decisions, they don’t appear to be insane (and we have at least some safeguards against insanity.)
Since I live here and not in Iran, I am therefore in support of preventing Iran from having nukes. I don’t deny that this is self interested; were I in Iran and not here, i am certain that I would want my government to have nuclear weapons.
Well, there’s the site I keep linking. (Was Iraq Going To Be Certified WMD-Free In 1997?)
From an argument with Michael Cohen, starting here:
See also this about reporting on Iran.
I meant that as a response to Dianne’s question, of course, and I don’t know where the emphasis came from.
I seriously doubt that Iraq will be a client state of Iran unless we pull out before the secular government can finish it’s job and abandon them.
I see at least two major problems with this. Iraq’s Parliament seems to want us out, like the vast majority of the Iraqi people, and Maliki already seems friendly with Iran (as do people in the legislature).
The best (i.e. most believable) scenario I’ve seen re: the WMDs was presented in the Atlantic, I think – sorry, no time to research. Basically, Iraq had no functioning WMD programs. Funds that Saddam thought were going to WMD programs were in fact going to various corrupt generals. Saddam thought he had a WMD program, and thought he had to protect it. The West, not unreasonably, took Saddam’s behavior at its face value – people who really don’t have WMD programs act differently than he did. He acted like someone trying to hide things, and was probably giving orders to hide things. His subordinates, who knew (because they were the ones skimming the money) that there was nothing to hide, played along with him because if he found out the truth, it would be Danny Deever time for them.
Robert, do you read any of my comments?
Also, didn’t anyone else read that Washington Post article back in 1999?
Iraq’s Parliament seems to want us out, like the vast majority of the Iraqi people,
Now? On a particular timetable? Or after some functional milestone such as after the Iraqi government can take full responsibility for civil and military security? Hell, I want us out of Iraq. But under what circumstances? Polling an open-ended question such as “Do you want the U.S. out of Iraq” can make for great support for a particular narrative, but isn’t actually too informative regarding what particular course of action people want.
Maliki is friendly with Iran? Maliki wants to get along with Iran – no one wants another Iran/Iraq war. Describing their relationship as “friendly” is not particularly accurate, I’d say.
Oh, that’s nothing new. Here’s what the Associated Press reported in 2006:
Now, why would the US permit a guy who spent years under Iranian protection to become the leader of Iraq? Because all the other candidates for the job are even more compromised than he is. Face it: Iran has won the Iran/Iraq war, and to the victors go the spoils.
Nixon put on a good show, but I don’t really believe Nixon loved China. I believe Nixon concluded that we weren’t gonna change China. We could be friends or we could be enemies. Given that choice, he opted for friends, and it’s worked out to our mutual benefit (mostly). We should be doing the same in Iran.
And ironically, this is a service that Bush is uniquely qualified to render for his country. He got us into this; he can get us out and burnish his legacy at the same time. Do the deal.
HF – No, I usually don’t. People who cite Cockburn’s conspiracy theories are not usually people I give my time to. Sorry.
Today Nat. Public Radio did a story about, among other things, the challenges posed by Malaki’s ties to Iran:
Quick survey: Does anyone here think that invading Iran and/or bombing it would be a good idea? If so, under what conditions? And is there any doubt in anyone’s mind that the Iraq invasion, whether you support/ed it or not, was mishandled?
Dianne:
1) The situation is nowhere near the threshold for invasion of Iran. Iran would pretty much have to invade Iraq or get a whole lot more active and blatant about supporting terrorism and insurgency in Iraq. My threshold for bombing Iran is somewhat lower, depending on circumstances and depending on just what the hell you can reasonably expect to accomplish by doing so. If there was a very good chance of wiping out their nuclear weapon capabilities I’d go along with it.
2) I’ve stated a number of times that while the actual invasion of Iraq was very well handled, the post-invasion occupation and the support of the Iraqi government (once constituted) up to the adoption of Gen. Petraeus’ COIN strategies was grossly mishandled.
If there was a very good chance of wiping out their nuclear weapon capabilities I’d go along with it.
Hmm…if there were a good chance of wiping out the US’s nuclear weapons capabilities by bombing them, would you say that Iran would be justified in doing so?
I’ve stated a number of times that while the actual invasion of Iraq was very well handled, the post-invasion occupation and the support of the Iraqi government (once constituted) up to the adoption of Gen. Petraeus’ COIN strategies was grossly mishandled.
My error: I consider the post-invasion occupation as part of the invasion and was making the unfounded assumption that everyone else did too…The great weakness of the Iraq War seems always to have been a lack of plan for what to do if/when it was won. Bush seems to have had a reasonable idea of how to conquer a country, but little idea of what to do with a country once you conquer it.
Bomb ’em to take out nukes, would be my rough guideline.
Of course the Iraq invasion was mishandled. After all, we’ve taken nearly as many casualties in five years of war as we took in a couple of bad days at Normandy. Sheer incompetence, that we haven’t developed our military techniques to the point of total omnipotence on the battlefield, only to 90% of the way there.
If you mean, were there mistakes and errors in the strategy? Sure. I don’t think anyone will defend every choice that’s been made. But most of the criticisms I’ve seen have focused on bad outcomes of choices without any consideration of what the potential bad outcomes of the other choices were. Sure, we shouldn’t have dismantled the Iraqi army and caused widespread unemployment; of course, if we had left it intact, we’d have caused widespread corruption and probably put much greater military infrastructure into the hands of insurgencies. Then the criticism would be “by not dismantling the army, we handed our enemies the weapons they needed to fight our troops!” Etc.
Oh, I suppose if Iran declared war on a NATO country and launched a missile that struck a NATO country then bombing and/or invasion might be in order. The fact that there are a lot of insufficient reasons offered for going to war with Iran does not preclude the possibility that the US would discover sufficient reasons for going to war with Iran (or with anybody else, for that matter). That’s one of the reasons I don’t get alarmed when people accuse the administration of “making plans for invading Iran!” I hope the Pentagon has such plans; I hope they have plans for invading Canada, too. I don’t anticipate that we’ll need either set of plans, but I don’t see the harm in contingency planning.
Has the occupation been mishandled? Rumsfeld’s dismissal signaled the end of any dispute on that score. Indeed, among the many problems with the Iraq war has been the lack of planning. The State Department had done a lot of planning, and the Administration used these plans as a basis for identifying people to help run the invasion: people who were acquainted with the State Department plans were EXCLUDED from participation. True to form, the Administration actively sought out ignorance as the basis for action.
The documentary (and companion book) No End In Sight includes an interview with Barbara Bodine, a career Foreign Service officer, former ambassador and “co-ordinator for central Iraq in charge of Baghdad,” discussing the botched job we did. “There were 500 ways to do it wrong and two or three ways to do it right…. What we didn’t understand is that we were going to go through all 500.” Kinda sums it up.
> > If there was a very good chance of wiping out their nuclear
> > weapon capabilities I’d go along with it.
>
> Hmm…if there were a good chance of wiping out the US’s
> nuclear weapons capabilities by bombing them, would you
> say that Iran would be justified in doing so?
I assure you, any sane Iranian leader would think so. Fortunately for us, there isn’t a chance in hell that anyone on Earth can manage it (the same applies for the Russian nuclear arsenal)
At this point, maybe because of the stupidity and incompetence of our latest government, a significant part of the Muslim world considers the West their enemy. Whether this is a bad thing, whether this was avoidable, whether your favorite demagogue would have done better is subject to debate. Some people would even deny that the Muslim are justified in feeling threatened.
But this does not matter. Every Iranian I know thinks that their country is threatened by US politics, and that having nuclear weapons is the best way Iran can protect its independence and self-determination. I can hardly argue with them, given what happened in Iraq.
I do not have to like the Iranian government to believe that a American Invasion would be hell for the common citizen. By the way, I also believe that it would be a disaster for the US, and no politician would be stupid enough to allow it. Then again, I thought exactly the same in 2003. Even got a few articles published both here and in Bulgaria… to the everlasting amusement of my friends.
But bombing? Well, If we get away with it, sure. Especially if we manage to get the Israeli to do it for us – they have no reputation to lose from doing so. It will make the world safer for us, and maybe even for Iranians. A pyramid is a very stable construct, and it’s not a bad one, as long as you are near the top.
I hope they have plans for invading Canada, too.
I don’t know if they do, but they at least did.
I like the Canadian plan for coping myself:
1. Counterinvade about 20 miles.
2. Destroy all connecting roads, railroads, etc.
3. Retreat north.
4. Hope the Britsh come save our very, very cold butts.
I assure you, any sane Iranian leader would think so. Fortunately for us, there isn’t a chance in hell that anyone on Earth can manage it
Is that fortunate? I’m not convinced…Certainly a world in which the US and only the US had nuclear weapons would be a disaster: the government would start using them at every opportunity and apart from the obvious damage to the rest of the world, who’d want to live in a country like that? Not to mention what would happen once the radiation drifted around the world…a problem that probably wouldn’t have been recognized until it was too late. If Julius Rosenberg did provide the Soviet’s with the information they needed to build their first nuke, he probably saved the planet. (End treasonous thought for the day…have I mentioned that I’m procrastinating badly right now?)
Once again: bombing would strengthen the people we want to weaken inside Iran. Assuming that nobody in this thread is evil.
And the Washington Post has reported holes in the administration’s claims about Iran, just like they reported on US spies posing as weapons inspectors. The paper just hasn’t given it front-page attention (and apparently everyone forgot the A1 story on spying). I almost forgot to add: this (Clinton Signs Iraq Liberation Act) seems like the most important point when it comes to “conspiracy theories” .
Remember Scott Ritter? Here he is in 2000, quoted by a leftist-source that Robert would automatically tune out.
But don’t take his word for it. Madeleine Albright, March 26, 1997, in her first major foreign policy address as Secretary of State: “We do not agree with the nations who argue that if Iraq complies with its obligations concerning weapons of mass destruction, sanctions should be lifted. They would, however, have to end by law if inspectors certified Iraq’s compliance. I repeat: we pulled the inspectors out before bombing the country in 1998.
?
Dianne, that might depend on whether or not any of us actually paid attention to politics in that world. (I have another comment evidently held for moderation.)
The situations aren’t parallel, Dianne. The leader of Iran is a power-hungry, unstable, cruel, dishonest, fundamentalist religious fanatic with delusions of grandeur, while the leader of the US is…wait, nevermind.
Ah, there’s my comment. And it looks like the site treats blockquotes in an odd way, bolding the first paragraph.
I should point out, I don’t mean to say that everyone knew Iraq had disarmed (although they could have figured it out). I mean that none of the people talking about WMD and noncompliance showed a real interest in the question.
This should interest people here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/7444083.stm