So which bit aren't you convinced by? Do you think Iraq did have long-range WMD? (They didn't.) Do you think that the raw intelligence reports claimed this? (They didn't, as the head of the JIC stated to the Butler inquiry) Do you think that Tony Blair believed this was what the intelligence said? (Perhaps, but do you trust a man who misreads intelligence like that?) Or do you think that the British public knew that the 45-minute claim did not relate to long-range WMD? (I certainly didn't.)
The trouble with the humanitarian argument is that there are a lot of people in Iraq who are now dead, who would not have been had the Coalition not invaded. People are continuing to die. How do you know a combination of sanctions and diplomatic engagement wouldn't have resulted in a change of the Ba'athist regime? Or let's take the 'do nothing' strategy - Saddam wasn't going to live forever, and this sort of dictatorship rarely gets dynastic. So had a policy of containment been followed, what might well have happened was a revolution on Saddam's death, which would have had a lower casualty figure than this war.
Besides, if it was right to go into Iraq on humanitarian grounds, doesn't that make Blair a hypocrite for not advocating military intervention in Zimbabwe?
I'm by no means a universal peacenik. I continue to believe that, once Saddam had invaded Kuwait in 1990, a military response was the correct one. But one should be wary of those who leave to war as a quick response to problems they otherwise can't work out how to solve. It's simplistic, and it rarely works out for the best.
no subject
The trouble with the humanitarian argument is that there are a lot of people in Iraq who are now dead, who would not have been had the Coalition not invaded. People are continuing to die. How do you know a combination of sanctions and diplomatic engagement wouldn't have resulted in a change of the Ba'athist regime? Or let's take the 'do nothing' strategy - Saddam wasn't going to live forever, and this sort of dictatorship rarely gets dynastic. So had a policy of containment been followed, what might well have happened was a revolution on Saddam's death, which would have had a lower casualty figure than this war.
Besides, if it was right to go into Iraq on humanitarian grounds, doesn't that make Blair a hypocrite for not advocating military intervention in Zimbabwe?
I'm by no means a universal peacenik. I continue to believe that, once Saddam had invaded Kuwait in 1990, a military response was the correct one. But one should be wary of those who leave to war as a quick response to problems they otherwise can't work out how to solve. It's simplistic, and it rarely works out for the best.