>Actually this assertion by Bolton is the perfect argument of why the
>invasion approach is doomed: because what it is that you finally want to
>wipe out because you feel threatend by it cannot by nature be wiped out
>even by invasion and occupation.
>
>So while we don't know for sure whether a soft approach can work, we do
>know for sure, without even trying it out, that a hard approach can't.
>The soft approach is the only possible option.
Yeah, but you can't win elections with the "soft" stuff - real men do invasions! Note that Bush, in his Memorial Day speech, referred to the "battles of Afghanistan and Iraq" - mere moments in the 50-year war. As Michael Hardt put it when I interviewed him last week, war used to be considered an exception; now the state of exception has become the norm.
Doug