> > Is post-invasion Iraq significantly worse off than
> > pre-invasion Iraq?
>
> Why start there and not pre-Gulf War I or pre-sanction
> Iraq?
You mean rewind the tape to when around 500,000 Iraqis were getting killed in a brutal (and largely ineffectual) war of conquest against Iran (of course, we all know the US was responsible for every speck of bloodshed in that conflict... because it sold weapons to both sides)? Or when 60,000 Kurds were getting gassed? Ya, I think it's possible that Iraqis can reasonably hope for something better than __that_ (as I already said, they can also reasonably fear something worse).
And, although I'm sure we can agree some of the US's policies torwards Iraq have been morally ghastly (e.g. the sanctions), I cannot see how anyone besides the Cox's and the Furuhashi's of the world can contemplate what Iraq and its neighbors would look like now if the US had never lifted a finger and yawn. I, for one, think it's a *good thing* that a nuclear Iraq didn't conquer Kuwait and Saudie Arabia and, in the process, install even worse regimes in those countries.
-- Luke