Polishing a Turd
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Is there any possible answer which bush could give that would justify the Iraq war?
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The 2nd Gulf war was justified because:
1. Iraq violated the armistice MANY times.
2. Iraq attempted an assassination on Bush41 in 1993 when he was visiting Kuwait.
Either of these reasons alone were sufficient enough to go to war. The problem is the Bush adminstration BOTCHED the occupation creating a HUGE mess..... I would have loved to have heard the internal talks in the Bush admin to see if Rumsfeld deserved as much grief as he got for the occupation or whether he was just being Bush's errand boy.
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If Iran were to disrupt the supply of oil this would leave the United States and much of Europe with very little control, giving countries like Russia and China the upper hand.
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China? No I don't think so. High oil prices are bad for China.
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We will try to improve the standuard of living and create a society which will be envied throughout the middle east and much of the developing world.
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This was a noble goal but in retrospect it is overly ambitious. Nation building failed in Somalia because of their lawless screwed-up culture. Installing a democrat Iraq will fail because of their culture as well. An enlightened Kurdish dictatorship would have been my choice. Much easily to implement and much cheaper. Iraq's centrally controlled economy would have flourished with the more free-market leaning kurds. The Kurdish version of Saddam would need to burn down a few towns to establish his alpha dog status and then the Arabs would fall into obedience.
The current Shia govt in Iraq are a bunch of 2-face bastards. There are in league with Iran as shown by their repeated attempts to free captured Iranian insurgents. The Shia govt's primary goal to to have a Shia controlled Iraq and to hell with the Kurds and Sunnis. The only thing stopping them is the BILLIONS of aid money flowing from the USA into Iraq. So they try to play the USA for as much money as possible while consolidating their power. If the USA would drop the hammer on Iran, then this pipedream might have a chance...though it would be a small chance. The current occupation policy is analogous to polishing a turd. No matter how much you try to make a turd look shiny...it is still a turd and it will always be a turd...
The question whether Bush41 should have orchestrated the 1st Gulf war is a more interesting question. Getting Kuwait's oil would have almost doubled Iraq's financial power putting their power on par with Iran (Iran is stronger than Iraq as shown by Iraq's need for aid in the Iraq-Iran War).
Pros/Cons of Launching the 1st Gulf War
+A more powerful Iraq MAY have increased its funding of terror.
+A more powerful Iraq MAY have tried to invade Saudia Arabia.
-Iraq is a useful counterbalance to Iran. A stronger Iraq keeps Iran more on the defensive. Iraqis hate Persians and vice-versa, so this mutual distrust is useful. Attacking Iraq weakens them and therefore increases the power of Iran. Which is a bad thing.
*But we will never know.... My guess is Saddam would have moved to make his army more powerful than Iran's and have tried to accelerate Iraq's attempt to get the a-bomb. The increase money would have probably increased Saddam's ambitions and he may have embarked on being the big man of the middle east by becoming a bigger sponsor of terror. I'm sure he would have LOVED to get the Saudi's oil as well if he thought he could get away from it....
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