* Iraq

There is an interesting interview on Salon with a Middle East expert. I think that this paragraph does an admirable job in summing up why the Iraq war was a bad idea, even if we assume that there was some small risk of collaboration between Al Queda and Saddam:

Now we have in effect opened up a new front in the war on terrorism. We have provided a whole new set of targets. We have started an unnecessary war by plopping down in the middle of an Arab heartland a huge Anglo-American force, which, leaving aside the issue of whether we went in with enough force, is going to invite this kind of attention from a lot of people in the Middle East. I don't think that the decision to go to war in Iraq can be repealed. I'm not one of those people who believe that this was wrong in the first place and now it's time to cut and run. I think that would invite an even worse situation. One thing we don't want to do in Iraq is to leave behind another failed state that could become another breeding ground for terrorists, particularly in an area of such importance as the Middle East.

The rest of the interview is somewhat worth reading, but it doesn't break much new ground.
- posted by David @ 10:52 AM