> Peter
Well, this is the Hitch line through and through; and though I agree with you two on al-Qaeda, I really don't see where this "moderate" or even "democratic" Iraq is going to come from. I've asked you here, and Hitch privately, and neither of you have ever provided an answer -- What will be so different after Saddam? Will there be open elections, thus ensuring a Shia majority government which would be warm to the mullahs in Iran, and which the US and Israel decidedly don't want? Will the Kurdish nationalists suddenly wish to be part of a multi-ethnic Iraq, abandoning their dream of Kurdistan? And what of the Sunnis? Are they to be relegated to minority status? Again, as I have said here repeatedly, given the region's players, the desires of Israel and Turkey, the "menace" of Iran, and of course all that crude, I don't see anything other than another Sunni-run regime, defanged to the degree that it cannot invade other states (though there is the option that a US-dominated Iraq could then move militarily into Iran), but strong enough to keep Shia and Kurdish nationalism under foot -- not as brutally as Saddam did, but firm all the same.
If this is the case, then what Bush wants is Saddamism without Saddam, much like Carter wanted Somozaism without Somoza in Nicaragua. A lighter, friendlier option, yes, but not much of one to those who must submit.
DP