I think Iraq’s WMD programs were one (of many) reasons that we invaded. When the Bush admin made its case to the US populace and UN, WMD was the admin’s main selling point.
Do you disagree that WMD were one of the main justifications for invading Iraq? If so, what do you think was the real reason for invading Iraq?
I read recently (and now can’t find the cite, sorry, but I think it was in Asia Times) that some policy analysts consider the current hardline Iranian rhetoric largely a tactical maneuver to increase US support for keeping troops in Iraq. (It also earns Ahmedinejad brownie points with fundamentalist and anti-Israel fanatics in the region and boosts his standing in internal political conflicts, but according to this argument, those are secondary factors.)
The reasoning goes that Iran has a lot to gain from solidifying a Shi’ite-dominated, Iran-friendly government in Iraq, and that this is more likely to happen if the occupying forces continue to help in putting down the mostly-Sunni insurgency. If the US were to “declare victory and leave” in the near future, on the other hand, Iran’s task would be more difficult and problematic, and Iraq might be seriously destabilized by full-scale civil war.
So if Iran sounds like a scary new threat, the US will be less open to short-term withdrawal plans from Iraq, and Iran will have more time to consolidate its gains.
If this analysis is accurate, then I would expect Ahmedinejad to keep pumping the nationalist, inflammatory rhetoric, but to combine it with a strategic concession like agreeing to IAEA negotiations. His object would be to maintain a delicate balancing act: i.e., to keep the West, particularly the US, nervous enough about Iran that they remain committed to suppressing the Iraqi insurgency, but not so nervous that they decide to actually launch an attack on Iran.
That sounds perfectly reasonable to me Kimsitsu. It always makes sense to assume the enemy is rational.
I vehemently disagree. That most certainly is not our cake, and I do not even believe it to be a real cake at all; rather it is a mere facsimile of cake projected onto the wall of a cave, lacking in the true cake-like essence, a mere shadow of a cake, if you will, as the true form of cakey goodness lies safely in the Land of Summer’s Twilight…
OK, actually we completely agree: “We can’t do it” and “We can’t do it without screwing our economy and our other global commitments” (which is what I think BG meant) are essentially the same.
Do you know the difference between a justification and an excuse? Wolfowitz for one has stated publicly that they played up the WMD stuff essentially for marketing reasons. Many people are still buying it.
Note, though, that the UN teams had already stated they were within a couple of weeks of reporting that there weren’t any when Bush decided he couldn’t wait any longer. Is that reasonable.
Note too, though, that the US forces left all the alleged WMD sites alone when they got there. Is that simple incompetence, or did it reflect that the DoD already knew it wasn’t there?
Now with how much courtesy should one assess your statement that it was a simple fact?
Yes, but what if they really, seriously believe that Allah is on their side? What if they really are as crazy as they seem?
So meaningful sanctions probably won’t happen. A US military action is highly unlikely. Diplomacy is unlikely to be productive. So back to the wild card …
Here sits Israel. They know that the President is of no real power and is probably just playing to his crowds, but they also that those of real power are not muzzling him. Why not? Probably Iran wouldn’t actually do something so irrational … but then again, from an Israeli POV one could get quite grey waiting for rational choices from some on “the other side.” What if they do really intend to destroy us? Can we risk the small possiblity? Can we succeed in taking them out? This isn’t Iraq; this program is buried and spread out. The cost of not trying to take them out is risking total destruction. The cost of trying includes no certainty of success and minmally lots more terrorist activity. Crap.
My WAG: Israel will do its best to take out the program in one way or another. They have no choice if nothing else works. And the knowledge that Israel would do that will drive China and Russia to pressure Iran to compromises.
Don’t go there, Age! You do not want to hand anybody that rich a straight line!
Another illegal war with shades of terrorism. Yea - that’s bound to help, bound not to fuel anti-western muslim sentiment and create more determined terrorists, except now with a major state thinking ‘enemy of my enemy, here have some weapons, feast on this Intel’ etc.
Serves us right if they screw the world economy in retaliation by halving oil output. What makes you think we have the goddam right to go around pulling shit like this?
How about us living up to our reciprocal obligations under the NPT as we expect others to?
We’re the people who overthrew their democracy and put them in the hands of a brutal puppet dictator, we’re the people who invaded next door on a transparent pretext, we’re the people who keep sayin ‘youse is next’ to any non-nuclear regime we take a dislike to, we’re the ones sabre-rattling over any democratically elected govt we don’t like the look of. We’re the ones that kept rattling the cage of the Iraq/Iran war and armed both sides.
Frankly, given all this, and given Israel’s nuclear arms and given the kid gloves NK has to be handled with, they’d be insane not to want nukes.
Yeah, no justification for an attack on Iran, right? Totally ‘illegal’. Yep. Got it.
lol…our ‘reciprocal obligations under the NPT’ ehe? You mean our obligations as a nuclear power AND a member of the UNSC, right? Hm…just what are those ‘obligations’ tagos? The irony is killing me here.
Yeah, we are just evil aren’t we. And your unbiased appraisal just cuts to the bone there.
And so we should just give them to em, right? Or just look the other way while they get them. You should rejoice then…thats most likely what will happen. Then you can bitch and moan some time in the future if bad things happen…or break your arm patting yourself on the back if nothing happens, all the while crowing about how farsighted you were and how evil and stupid the US was for ever trying to oppose Iran. Hell man, you are covered either way, yes?
-XT
Sounds good to me.
At least the document stops short of calling for any military action.
So they decided to put that reason at the forefront of the case. That doesn’t mean the reason was false.
In fact, it suggests the opposite. Why would they put the one reason they all knew was false at the forefront of the case for regime change? If you’re going to give a reason for the war, why would you give the one reason that everyone knows is n false? If you’re going to lie about the reason, why would you make up a lie that’s going to be so easily discovered to be false? And if you’re capable of lying about the reason, why aren’t you also capable of planting evidence to support your lie after the war? It’s ridiculous.
And if you look at what Wolfowitz actually said, you’ll see that it certianly does not imply that the WMD were the only reason for invading, or that the WMD justification was false.
Cite please? I wasn’t aware that prior to the invasion, any UN team (let alone multiple UN teams) had already said they were a couple of weeks away from reporting there weren’t any WMD in Iraq. This is especially surprising when you consider that on March 7, 2003 – less than 2 months before the invasion began – Hans Blix told the UN that even with a “proactive Iraqi attitude,” verification of disarmament would take months. And he certainly didn’t characterize Iraq as having a proactive attitude.
It’s probably also notable that the UNMOVIC summary document published in October 2003 does not say anything about these supposed UN teams saying they were a couple of weeks from reporting that there weren’t any WMD. I can only think of two reasons such an important fact would be left out of the document: a) they didn’t think such claims were credible enough to include in the report; or b) they never happened.
Again, cite please? Because I was under the impression that they cleared at least 87 WMD sites in the first month after the invasion.
Having read many of your prior posts on the subject, I don’t expect you to treat it with any courtesy. But it is a fact. Nor have you provided evidence otherwise. Not to mention the fact that the Joint Authorization for the use of Force in Iraq is pretty clear about the reasons for the invasion (emphasis added):
Still think the WMD had nothing to do with it?
Care to comment on this? Because as far as I can tell, it just says that some folks thought Hussein’s WMD programs were a problem way back in the Clinton administration. Am I missing something sinister?
How’s that Senate Select Committee on Intelligence investigation into the admin’s misuse of prewar intelligence going? I checked their website, but there don’t seem to be any updates, despite chairman Robert’s promise to ‘get right on it.’
Our obligations under the NPT.
Building new generation nukes doesn’t fit this criteria.
Emphasis added. Now this: Iran ‘positive’ on Russia plan
Might this be the sort of “strategic concession” I tentatively predicted? Does it argue for the Iranian “balancing act” I described? Looks possible to me but I wouldn’t swear to it.
But the total lack of the stuff, after all these years of looking for it, does.
Already stated, by Wolfowitz. That was the story that would sell. Once the war was started, it just wouldn’t matter what the cover story was.
Yet it’s been admitted that that’s what happened.
The statements were that there were so few places left to look that that’s how long it would take. Blix’s report 3/7/03 was that it would take a little longer to go through all the documentation for confirmation. Now are you claiming that there was still a ‘grave and gathering danger’ from those nonexistent, lied-about WMD’s at the time Bush invaded? Or did he invade then to keep his cover story (which, once again, *was * a cover story) from being blown?
Not notable, simply moot at that point.
And found exactly bubkis. Your use of the term “WMD site” is disingenuous to the point of falsity.
To the contrary, I treat it with all the courtesy it deserves.
No, it is not.
Based, as you know, only upon what Bush wanted Congress to think. What, do you think Congress had even equal, much less superior, information? We KNOW better by now. W
Is there anything you hold Bush responsible for? Is accountability only for the other guys? Is “But Clinton did it” the stock reply for every criticism?
There was MORE shit on the ground during the Clinton years. It was being found and eliminated by the GOP-scorned UN teams. All the while Saddam was being completely contained, without a single US casualty at that. Clinton did not start a war and did not try to lie us into one. Your guy did. Don’t try to make excuses.
You can’t expect your fellow Dopers to spoonfeed you forever. It’s outright astonishing that the PNAC policy statement urging an invasive war, and its membership (look at the signatures, and look up their more recent job titles), is new information to you. You asked why they wanted to invade Iraq, and I pointed you to where they themselves said why they wanted to invade Iraq.
That concession has been on the table for a long time.
Yeah, but is Iran now publicizing it as such in order to maintain this “balancing act” that I speculated about? My prediction didn’t specify that Iran would necessarily embrace a new idea for a strategic concession.