I don't agree with your first claim. Why we may have worried about Saddam getting too much, and I won't argue it wasn't in some of the thinking, the arguement for us stopping him was an international one, through the UN, that such aggreession based on false threat arguemnt that Saddam used couldn't be tolerated. Nor should it have been, and under the UN, internationabl law, that made sense.
In 2003 we used Saddam's argunment ourselfs, falsely arguing there was a threat. There wasn't one of that kind. And no one believed Saddam would step out again. It would have been pointless for him to even try, as he had no chance of success. He wasn't that foolish. Nor did we believe him to be. Our own intel said he wasn't and that he was not likley to much of anything, unless we invaded.
War did not have to be in this case. I see no evidence suggesting that war was inevitable minus or own desire for it.
Hmmm.
You may have a point, in some regards. You may or may not recall, however, that Saddam had violated innumerable UN directives regarding various actions he was supposed to take/not take, and was condemned for those violations by the UN and innumerable nations. Many leaders expressed concern that Iraq was developing chemical, biological or radiological weapons and might use them, including Tony Blair and Bill Clinton (during his Presidency... you may recall he bombed Iraq.). Saddam was very uncooperative with UN arms inspectors, to say the least. To a large degree, he brought this on himself. As it turns out he was either bluffing about all the CBR weapons, or else Syria got them before we invaded as some believe. Too bad for him.
You appear to hold to a very, very high standard about when we should go to war. You want international approval, proof positive of necessity beyond any shadow of a doubt, and certainty that the end result will be better than inaction. I retort that we didn't have all
that even going into World War Two... yet if we had stayed out of it, the end results may have been catastrophic.
My standards are not nearly so stringent. I don't require moral equivalency arguments because I believe in American Exceptionalism. My only intrest in the UN is as a vehicle to get other nations to pitch in and support actions that benefit America and our allies.... otherwise the UN can go hang for all I care. International "Law" be thrice-damned and ground up for sausage, a soveriegn nation acts in its own intrests and according to its own laws.... and the ultimate law between nations is how many carrier groups, bomber squadrons and tank brigades do you have.
To my thinking, an evil bastard named Saddam Hussein got most deservedly taken out of power and hung. A bunch of evil SOB's called the Baathists got taken down; good job. A nation called Iraq got a chance to start over without a brutal tyrant and shape their own destiny; what they do with that chance is now up to them.
As for whether we were better off with Saddam as-is, in terms of securing American intrests in that region... well, we can argue what-ifs and maybes all day, in the end, well it is done and we have to work with what we've got. Odds are we'll have to kick some more ass in that region soon enough; it's not a very stable region to start with, it's chock-full of dictators with more 'dick' than sense. :shrug: It's like that sometimes.
I volunteered for the first Gulf War; was turned down due to a hearing problem. My son will probably fight in the next one. I'm okay with that.
