According to Robert Novak, a report will come out in mid-September which demonstrates that Iraq was pursuing a weapons of mass destruction program.
The United States absolutely had the right to take down the Iraqi dictatorship, but should we have taken down the Iraqi regime? Was Iraq really an imminent threat, or a threat at all, to the security of the United States?
There are very few people who would attempt to claim that our security is worse off now that we have taken down Saddam Hussein’s regime. However, at this point in time, I do not believe that taking down the Iraqi regime was a very high priority for the security of the United States.
It seems that the rationale behind going after Iraq was that they were developing a weapons of mass destruction program, which, in the hands of terrorists, would prove absolutely devastating to the security of the United States. So, it would be better to take out a potential weapons dealer for terrorists before they have the ability to give such weapons to any terrorist group to inflict harm on the United States. This rationale makes a lot of sense.
While it was clear that Iraq had attempted to amass a weapons program in the past, that the Iraqi regime hated America and its Western allies, and that Saddam would take the chance of inflicting damage to the United States through terrorist organizations, I do not believe that the regime of Saddam Hussein was a so-called “imminent threat” to the security of the United States. Nonetheless, the elimination of the possibility of this threat could have been accomplished A LOT quicker and easier than the 9 month process of begging the U.N. for help, and sending over 150,000 U.S. troops into Iraq. I believe that the fall of the Iraqi regime (or at least the drastic reduction of their threat) could have been accomplished with three bullets to the heads of Saddam, Qusay, and Uday Hussein. This would obviously not require the use of a lot of American troops, and would allow these troops to act against the real security threats to our country. But who are the real security threats to our country?
As I said in my previous post, The War on Terrorism, the biggest threat to the security of the United States at this point in time is Islamic fundamentalism. According to this ideology, America is a “great satan” because of all of its virtues: reason, egoism, capitalism, justice, integrity, etc., and followers must engage in a jihad (holy war) to rid the earth of this evil (America and the rest of the West).
The heart of this movement can be found in the theocratic regime of Iran. This movement also either controls the government of the following countries or is a strong influence in the population: the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the ideology of Palestinian terrorist groups (although their main enemy is Israel), Pakistan, Syria, and others. These are the threats that we should be primarily concerned with at this time (along with the dictatorship of North Korea which is not a part of the Islamic fundamentalist movement).
Iran is a theocratic regime based on the principles of Islamic fundamentalism, Iran is the heart of the Islamic fundamentalist movement, the people of Iran are SCREAMING for the regime to be overthrown, hell, even the grandson of the founder of the Iranian regime, Ayatollah Khomeini, is saying that the Iranian regime should be overthrown.
It would make sense to eliminate the satellite countries of an ideology if the heart of that ideology was an extremely powerful and formidable enemy. However, this is simply not the case. The Iranian regime is near imminent collapse, all it needs is a little blow from the U.S. military.
The Saudi Arabian regime is experiencing the same thing: contiued resistance towards the Islamic fundamentalist leaders of the country, and thus, would easily fall to U.S. pressure.
In conclusion, at this point in time, I believe that it was NOT in the best interest of the United States to invade Iraq. I believe this because of the fact that Iran and Saudi Arabia are the two critical targets in our War on Terrorism, and because of the fact that we could have eliminated the Iraqi threat (at the very least for the moment) by putting a bullet through the heads of Saddam, Qusay, and Uday Hussein.
