# We would be in Iraq no matter what... **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 30, 2007, 5:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-would-be-in-iraq-no-matter-what/424544 "2007-10-30T05:27:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2007, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-would-be-in-iraq-no-matter-what/424544/61 "2007-10-30T20:10:12Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] [Oil companies, at any rate, were involved in crafting the State Department’s “Plan A” for invasion](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=381910) (later disregarded in favor of the Pentagon neocons’ “Plan B”). [/QUOTE] Interesting. But consulting with companies who might know something about the situation is different from the companies driving the invasion. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2007, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-would-be-in-iraq-no-matter-what/424544/62 "2007-10-30T20:16:46Z")
[QUOTE=ManiacMan] No I did not say that. I said that Iran wouldn’t do jack squat about us invading Iran until afterwards. The Iranians I am sure HATE the Iraqi leadership for the things that Iraqi leadership did to Iran and it’s people during their war. Some of which we can be a part of since we sold wmd to Iraq. [/QUOTE] They hated the Sunni leadership. They are now out, replaced by the Shia majority - who is naturally a lot more sympathetic to Iran than the Baathists. Iran did want Saddam out - and we conveniently did it for them. Now they can work behind the scenes very effectively - many of the Shia leaders, like Sadr, spend lots of time in Iran. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2007, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-would-be-in-iraq-no-matter-what/424544/63 "2007-10-31T04:01:33Z")
[QUOTE=ManiacMan] No I don’t think that the Iraqis were gonna burn the oil out of spite. The oil itself of course would always be there and ready for the pumping, but the question is WHEN that oil would be pumped. Not IF but when. [/quote] The answer to the question is: when Iraqis need to eat. ---
**Author:** ![ManiacMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b782af/32.png) [@ManiacMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ManiacMan)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2007, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-would-be-in-iraq-no-matter-what/424544/64 "2007-10-31T04:50:22Z")
[QUOTE=Princhester] The answer to the question is: when Iraqis need to eat. [/QUOTE] I thought there was a oil for food/medicine thing? ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2007, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-would-be-in-iraq-no-matter-what/424544/65 "2007-10-31T05:21:56Z")
There was. What’s your point? ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2007, 9:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-would-be-in-iraq-no-matter-what/424544/66 "2007-10-31T09:53:55Z")
> [@](#): > > Was it a status quo? Sure didn’t look like one to me at the time. The situation was constantly changing, with tensions mounting periodically over the admission or expulsion of inspectors, firing on American and British warplanes and units, and a constant effort by the Iraqis to undermine sanctions. Things heat up and things cool down. That doesn’t make war inevitable as all of the examples I gave show. > [@](#): > > I will remind you, too, that this flared up into air and cruise missile strikes in late 1998, concurrent with legislation signed by President Clinton making regime change in Iraq explicit U.S. policy. And I will note that all of this took place before Bush took office. Are you saying that the invasion that occurred in 2003 was inevitable since 1998? I’d say the fact that things heated up in 1998 and then cooled back down for several years showed that temporary crises don’t mean a war must folow. > [@](#): > > It wasn’t a status quo at all, clearly. And while I’m sure you’ve convinced yourself that it could have been maintained forever, I’m less convinced that that is true because of what we were dealing with at the time. Who said forever? I said another ten years on top of the ten years we had already put in. Dictators die and governments change without any push needed. Saddam was 66 years old in 2003. Would he still have been in power in another ten years? In twenty? Would Uday have been able to hold power on his own? ---
**Author:** ![Sevastopol](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cdc98d/32.png) [@Sevastopol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sevastopol)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2007, 11:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-would-be-in-iraq-no-matter-what/424544/67 "2007-10-31T11:08:01Z")
Plus Mr Al Gore is entitled to the same presumption of good faith we afforded Mr George Bush. Just because the office-holder then turned out to be a scumbag doesn’t mean Mr Gore would be the same in our alternate universe. With no scumbag in charge: No war. It is the only fair way to look at it. ---
**Author:** ![Frostillicus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Frostillicus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frostillicus)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2007, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-would-be-in-iraq-no-matter-what/424544/68 "2007-11-01T02:45:04Z")
This war is George Bush’s war and to claim that any other president on 9-11 would have made the same decision to invade Iraq (a nation that had NOTHING to do with 9-11) is ridiculous. ---
**Author:** ![Ale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@Ale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ale)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2007, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-would-be-in-iraq-no-matter-what/424544/69 "2007-11-01T03:20:17Z")
[QUOTE=Frostillicus] This war is George Bush’s war and to claim that any other president on 9-11 would have made the same decision to invade Iraq (a nation that had NOTHING to do with 9-11) is ridiculous. [/QUOTE] No, it´s not ridiculous, it´s an attempt to avoid resposibility. ---
**Author:** ![Plan\_B](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Plan\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Plan_B)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2007, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-would-be-in-iraq-no-matter-what/424544/70 "2007-11-01T03:27:51Z")
[QUOTE=tomndebb] “Everyone says”? I have heard all sorts of reasons, from oil to GWB wanting to “avenge” his father, (either for being mocked for not going into Iraq following Kuwait or for the purported assassination attempt), to the Wolfowitz term paper thaty blithely asserted that disrupting another culture we failed to understand would magically turn them into a nice Western style democracy, so I am not sure that we can assume that Iraqi oil would have led Gore to make the same disastrous error. [/QUOTE] Interesting that “all sorts of reasons” only includes reasons that make GWB look dumb. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2007, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-would-be-in-iraq-no-matter-what/424544/71 "2007-11-01T03:50:33Z")
[QUOTE=Plan B] Interesting that “all sorts of reasons” only includes reasons that make GWB look dumb. [/QUOTE] It was a really dumb idea. There was no legitimate reason to open a war against a contained dictator in a way that would bring only harm to the U.S. and its interests, but we did it anyway. That pretty much establishes an archtype for dumbness. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2007, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-would-be-in-iraq-no-matter-what/424544/72 "2007-11-01T03:58:22Z")
[QUOTE=Ale] No, it´s not ridiculous, it´s an attempt to avoid resposibility. [/QUOTE] 😕 Whose responsibility for what? ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2007, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-would-be-in-iraq-no-matter-what/424544/73 "2007-11-01T04:13:52Z")
> [@](#): > > No, it´s not ridiculous, it´s an attempt to avoid resposibility. > [@](#): > > Whose responsibility for what? If you accept the argument that any President would have invaded Iraq then there’s no reason to single out George Bush for having made a bad decision to do so. Saying the war was inevitable absolves Bush of responsiblity for it. ---
**Author:** ![Ale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@Ale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ale)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2007, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-would-be-in-iraq-no-matter-what/424544/74 "2007-11-01T04:59:35Z")
[QUOTE=Little Nemo] If you accept the argument that any President would have invaded Iraq then there’s no reason to single out George Bush for having made a bad decision to do so. Saying the war was inevitable absolves Bush of responsiblity for it. [/QUOTE] Exactly. Here, have a cookie. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![jshore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b5e925/32.png) [@jshore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jshore)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2007, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-would-be-in-iraq-no-matter-what/424544/75 "2007-11-02T21:53:03Z")
Not only does the claim that we would have gone to war independent of who was President run counter to all historical evidence, it also doesn’t really absolve Bush because not only was going to war a mistake but then the occupation was also [grotesquely mishandled](http://www.noendinsightmovie.com/). In other words, it was a very bad idea executed very badly. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-would-be-in-iraq-no-matter-what/424544.md?page=3)