Insightful commentary by Thomas today. As usual he's mostly right, but not completely. The Iraq war and its following experiment in democracy is a big gamble and could only be conceived on two bases: first, Saddam must have WMDs, or we'll be the laughing stock of the world. Our intelligence must not fail us this time. Second, Bush has chosen Iraq for his attempt at nation-building precisely because it is not a place dominated by radical Islamic extremists. The switch from a tyrant to freedom and 'the rule of law' may have a good chance for success.
Nevertheless, the adventure is fraught with risk and uncertainty and our policy will take years to demonstrate success.
On balance, assuming the intelligence is correct, it's a risk worth taking. The best results are: Saddam and his henchmen are gone; WMDs are found and destroyed; oil is pumped freely from a modernized infrastructure, hopefully Iraq is not part of OPEC; people are free and their creative energy can be focused on capitalism and living their dreams. This is the right, principled thing to do.
This is a big risk, but more power to the Bush administration for taking a breakthrough approach to counter the backward cultures in that part of the world created by misguided, power-hungry Islamic zealots.
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