> --Walzer lives in a fantasy that 1) the rest of the world was sensing a
> threat from Iraq militarily, 2) that Sodom needed to be
> militarily 'contained', and 3) that inspections agreed upon by the UN
> were *not* unconditional--recall that the inspections regime that Sodom
> was forced to accept [actually an inspections/spying regime] was the
> most unconditional any country had been subjected to in history, so
> said the inspectors themselves. Therefore the likelihood that, upon
> the discovery by inspectors that there were no WMDs...well that Gore
> could have sold the international community on the need to invade is
> pretty small. He'd have had to do it the way Bush did it, which was of
> course the only real option for those who wanted Iraq invaded.
Iraq violated UN security resolutions at various points in time. And, yes, Saddam did need to be "contained." According to his scientists, he was planning on resuming his WMD programs after the end of UN sanctions. If Iraq hadn't been "subjected" to an "unconditional inspections/spying regime," along with drastic sanctions (which killed many more people than both Gulf Wars combined), there's little doubt that Saddam would've eventually had nukes at his disposal. Now how can you be sure that a Gore administration would've been unable to sell the security council on something like Walzer's proposal? Because Hussein's regime had always fully complied with UN resolutions? That's false. Because, in 2002, they allowed inspectors back in to avert war? That's actually evidence in favor of Walzer's proposal.
> ---that was the liberal response, but i believe it really is mistaken.
> it entirely overlooks that the Bushies were very perceptive,
> recognising that the clinton-gore approach would not get an illegal
> invasion, nor would appealing to the international community--since the
> case for invasion of a very very very very weak Iraq was so very very
> very very weak. Gore, to successfully invade Iraq would have had to go
> the same route Bush went--and it's quite possible he would have if the
> pressure to do so in the aftermath of a 911 was great enough.
As others have noted, there wouldn't have been substantial pressure on Gore to wage war against Iraq. All the PNAC memos in the world would've had approximately zero impact on public opinion.
-- Luke