Like the new look. I didn’t even have to look in acronym finder to figure out what PITA meant as I, too, had fun registering… especially with SW Asia bandwidth…

I fiugred that as we have touched this topic before. I just think we really need to remind folks that they were two distinct missions and the inital one was completed to near perfection. The democrats and the media like to blend them together and we need to counter that at every mention.

You mised my point. I wasn’t comparing the USSR to Iraq merely pointing out that countries might start out as friends but as situations and realities change so do the relationships. In interpersonal relationships usually the folks you hate the most were our closest firends at one point. That is why the betrayal is so much worse. That is why so many people who were once in love can’t stand each other after divorce or break up.

Micky I have to respectfully disagree on one point. The war agianst Iraq was planned and executed flawlessly in record time with reocrd low casualties. The aftermath and rebuilding of Iraq and the war against many foreing invaders and some local insurgents is what was ill planned and executed. The democrats admitted that before they decided to blur the lines between the two. Remember the talking points of the 2004 election “George Bush won the War but failed to win the peace.” I think we cannot fail to remind people that there were two distinct missions. The first which was amazingly successful was the defeat of Iraq and regime change. The second which was not executed well in the beignning (and not a mission our military has ever been designed or trained for) was to stabilize and democratize Iraq i nthe aftermath of the war.

Now on to the topic…
“Conatinment” as a policy (the definition of which became very maleable under Clinton), was never more than a delaying tactic. A way of appearing to be “doing something” with out actually doing anything. That was one characteristic of the Clinton era foreign policy.

The fact is, we were going to end up in Iraq at some point, the question was just under what circumstances. Would it be a genuine civil war, with Uday and Qusay squabbling between themselves and everyone else, an all out war as Iran, turkey, Syria, and Saudi Arabia intervene, or one where we held some degree of control over what would transpire.

The decision was made to enact regime change, a carry over from the Clinton years, and to do so aggressively. We had waited 12 years for some sort of domestic option to emerge in Iraq. It didn’t happen. One thing Saddam was very good at, was identifying talent, and eliminating it before it became a threat to him. So that was no longer a viable option.

We had more than enough justification, and authorization to go in. The attempt on Bush 41 was enough, as that is an act of war (and it wouldn’t have mattered if it was Bush or Carter or Clinton). There was plenty of authoriation from previous UNSC resolutions going back to 1990 (pre-Desert Storm) for our actions. All the wrangling at the UN in 2002-2003 was nonesensical hand wringing, and attempts to pass the buck.

The invasion was the best option of a slew of bad options. Could we have waited? Perhaps another year or two, but no more. The time limit was running out. I shudder to think of what could have happened in Iraq had we just let it go…

Well, at least I’m awake now…