CNN.com: Blair risks losing job over Iraq
Blair now risks splitting his own party, alienating his two biggest partners in Europe -- France and Germany -- and perhaps even losing office, so unpopular is his support for war with Iraq in Britain.
Yet with zeal, he presses on.
75 to 80 percent of the British public are against war in Iraq. The line between "zeal" and hyper-explicit, politically suicidal kow-towing becomes a little blurrier.
To review:
What are the chances that Saddam Hussein will attack the UK? Pretty slim.
What are the chances that Saddam Hussein will attack anyone, with the threat of total destruction hanging over him? Also slim.
What are the chances that Saddam Hussein will attack anyone he can, with as much destructive force as he can muster, if he and his country are in the process of being anihilated? Considerably less slim.
Ignoring all the humanitarian concerns (which are, of course, significant), the most pragmatic stance towards Iraq and it's possible use of WMD seems to be the status quo: massive deterance and ongoing inspections.
And then there are the sanctions and the bombing every three days for ten years. Destroying Iraq's economy and civil infrastructure has clearly made the people much more dependent on Hussein, and caused unnecessary, unimaginable, yet widely documented suffering. The possibility of Iraqi people rising up against Hussein is--as a result--as unlikely now as it has ever been. Acknowledging this, and the fact that the US sold him many of the chemical and biological weapons he now has, might be the first step towards a sane policy on Iraq.
Check out the article "Iraq: A New Leaf," New York Review of Books, February 18, 1999, by William Polk. Polk reviews the possible options for US policy toward Iraq.
I base my assessment on over half a century of work and study on the Middle East as a scholar, as a businessman, and as a United States government policy planner. I have lived in Iraq under previous regimes, have closely observed Iraqi society, have visited units of the Iraqi army, have talked with most of the current Iraqi leaders, and have shared observations and insights with British, French, Russian, and fellow American observers and officials.
Note that Polk is also the author of the 1958 article in the Atlantic Monthly on the fall of Nuri al-Said. His book The Arab World Today is a very good introduction to modern Arab history.
Russil,
Thanks for posting that. Though Polk doesn't seem to have any problem with the US asserting ownership or control over an entire region because it can, he nonetheless provides what looks like a very good background on Hussein's motivations, and if followed, his policy would undoubtedly be much better than the current disaster.
I've cleaned up and reposted the article.
Thanks for cleaning up and reposting the Polk article, Dru.
I've put together a long article on September 11 and the Middle East, including a section on the Iraq crisis.