Rob Mitchell wrote:
Participatory governments are the least stable, least efficient, but
least
intrusive kind of government. So what's your point?
That destabilizing Iraq by invading it might not be in your own best
interests or in the interests of the rest of the world.
It's certainly something to think about seriously.
As far as threats go, N. Korea is arguably a bigger threat because we
know they
have plutonium and the capability to reprocess it, and we know they have
ICBM capability, and we know they have sold the missiles (not with
warheads) to several countries, and we know that they will soon have a
deployable bomb if they don't already.
N. Korea is a completely different sort of problem. For one thing there
was, until recently, hope that we could negotiate some sort of deal with
the Koreans. For another, nukes or not, North Korea holds a good
portion of South Korea hostage. For a third, well, the game isn't over yet.
And yet the world is paying attention to Iraq, and the world's last
remaining big army is bogged down in Iraq.
For the immediate future a big army isn't going to do much against the
North Koreans.
Much of the world oil supply comes from that region. There have been a
rising number of terrorist attacks in Saudi Arabia already.
Going back to the late 70s -- remember the attack on the Grand Mosque in
Mecca? The Saudis have been under pressure from extremists for decades
and it has gotten progressively worse as the problems in the Kingdom
have worsened -- notably as their ability to buy off the various
factions with oil money has decreased.
Saudi Arabia was obviously going to turn into a trouble spot long before
Iraq invaded Kuwait. (See if you can find a copy of the first edition
of "The Kingdom" to see how obvious that was.) It's worth noting that
Bin Laden's first target was not the United States, it was the Saudi
government.
With a strong (but admittedly brutal) government gone in Iraq, it gives the
enemy a potential new base of operations across the gulf from the major
oil fields and ports. (Remember the enemy's goals)
The 'enemy' already had a base of operations in Iraq. Hussein hated the
Saudis and was working actively to topple them (except in the mid-80s
when he was depending on support from them after he got in over his head
by attacking Iran). The material I posted earlier dealt only with
Iraqi-supported terrorists who attacked the US and American citizens.
The list of actions by Iraq against the Saudis is much longer.
I don't believe that you can 'jumpstart' a democracy in the kind of
environment you have in Iraq,
That's an understatement! If you mean Iraq as it is today. It's going to
be a long, slow, painful process and the outcome undoubtedly isn't going
to satisfy a lot of Americans. But most of the work is going to be done
by the Iraqis themselves. The elections and what has been happening
politically in Iraq since is the beginning.
at least not one that is favourable to the
US. I think you will be tied down in Iraq for many years, and in the
end another dictator, as bad as Saddam will be brought in,
We may well end up with another dictator. However that dictator is
extremely unlikely to be as bad an actor on the international stage as
Saddam was.
and all the
while, N. Korea will be making 8 A-bombs/year, or so I've heard.
(according to Professor Graham Allison of Harvard -the number may not be
accurate, who really knows.)
North Korea is going to have to be dealt with. We may have to do it
militarily. But even then we're not going to do it with an Iraq-style
invasion with US troops. For one thing it wouldn't be effective as
things stand now. For another thing, South Korea has an excellent
military and they are not at all adverse to forcefully unifying the
pennsuila under the right conditions.
We can hope it doesn't come to that, but the point is, North Korea is a
different situation from Iraq.
--RC
Some background on the N.Korea announcement is here.
http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2005/42084.htm
(I don't mean to get this fine thread off onto N. Korea but that is my
point, as you asked)