“Re: RE: Bush, Iraq, al Qaeda, WMD, Terrorism, etc., etc., etc.”

Mark Morgan wrote:

>I haven't read through all their archives so I don't know if they have an answer to a very important question: why Iraq? There are a lot of places we could go and play Empire and try to establish Pax Americana, some of which are a lot more dangerous to us. (North Korea? Saudi Arabia? Syria?) Why Iraq?
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>This is my core issue with the war. Was Iraq chosen as a result of 9/11, or was 9/11 merely a pretext to implement an existing plan to invade Iraq? Will the administration do anything else on their "war on terror" now that they've occupied Iraq, or is their mission really accomplished?
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Why Iraq? It's really the only good country to start with other than
Saudi Arabia. It's military was, obviously, very weak -- as we see now,
their best shot at winning was to leave the field of battle and then
return as a guerilla/terrorist style movement and try to push U.S.
deaths to a level unacceptable to the American. Unfortunately for that
strategy, polls show that what most Americans seem to want as a response
is more troops in Iraq, not less.

It would be great to get rid of North Korea, but a military solution
there would be close to suicide. North Korea would lose, but it could
cause unimaginable civilian deaths in South Korean cities before it was
defeated. And I don't think there are many people who doubt that North
Korea would do so if push came to shove.

Syria could probably be defeated as well, but knocking over Iraq sends
the message without actually having to go in with the troops -- it's the
domino theory all over again, only this time we're the ones trying to
put it into place.

Saudi Arabia -- The U.S. unfortunately still sees SA as a key ally given
its oil supplies.