Iraq progress may not help Bush BY MICHAEL MANDELBAUM

[jbfam4]

Iraq progress may not help Bush
Successes in our effort to rebuild the country won't appear until after our election in November
http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion/ny-vpman243816742may24,0,1024379.story?coll=ny-viewpoints-headlines

BY MICHAEL MANDELBAUM
Michael Mandelbaum is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a professor of foreign policy at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

May 24, 2004

The bad news from Iraq has taken a toll on President George W. Bush's popularity and thus on his chances for re-election.


Can the president point to any gains from the efforts the United States has made in Iraq? He can in fact cite two, but it will be difficult for him to win political credit for them. One valuable result of the war is more or less invisible to the public. The other is only a potential achievement, which, if it does come to pass, will do so after the November election.

By ending Saddam Hussein's rule, the war not only liberated 23 million Iraqis from a murderous tyrant, it also erased a potential threat to the Middle East, the United States and the world. That threat came not from the chemical weapons Hussein was believed to possess in 2003 but rather from the nuclear weapons he might subsequently have acquired.

Had Hussein not been removed from power, the French and Russian effort to lift the United Nations-imposed sanctions on Iraq would probably have succeeded. With wider freedom of action, Hussein might well have achieved his goal of building or buying an atomic bomb. A nuclear- armed Saddam Hussein would have posed a serious threat, but because of the war it will never materialize.



But that success - if indeed it does occur - will come well after our election in November. By the time Iraq's political future becomes clear, President Bush's political fate will already have been decided.

[aquart]

1. "Might" ? Maybe? Could have?

The man was sixty-five? His sons were murderous and incompetent louts who would have been assassinated by their own people two minutes after Saddam croaked.

And you think they could have mounted a successful nuclear program by intimidating scientists in their usual friendly way?

Give me a break. Neocon bogeymen just don't have that much power in the factual daylight.

Oh, and where, precisely, would these nuclear tests, you were expecting them to test these toys, right? Where would these tests be carried out?

Remember what Israeli jets did the last time someone in the ME tried this stunt? And you think it wouldn't happen again?

Oh, I forgot. If the Israelis do it, it's baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad.

We had nothing to fear from Saddam. Even his neighbors weren't scared of him anymore.

Honestly, the ONLY reason we attacked him is that we knew he couldn't fight back. If we'd really thought he had those weapons, we wouldn't have touched him with a ten foot pole. This is coward George who's in charge, folks. He only picks on the weaker kids.

[CulturalNomad]

3. You are my hero......

[Malva Zebrina]

2. I do not agree

with the notion that removing Saddam removed a potenetial threat. I have never bought that notion that was advertised by Bush, that removing Saddam from power was a great accomplishment.

Saddam could have been taken out without killing thousands of those people who supposedly "benefitted" and were "liberated" from shock and awe bombing. They are sure liberated now--somewhere , even if it be beneath the sand.

Further, if this is touted as a Bush beneficial achievement , all it does is justify Bush's war. It was one of his spins when things began to go bad re the WMD. Regime change then was the spin.

Saddam could never have been a potential threat. :eyes:

I do not like these "what ifs" as arguments. What if Saddam was not able to develop a nuclear weapon? What if lifting the sanctions would have done nothing but give the people a little better life?

[CulturalNomad]

4. You too are a hero.....

[cliss]

5. Interesting point.

Even if things go wonderfully in Iraq, Bush won't get credit for it. How incredibly self-defeating. Of course, he didn't go in for the kudos.....did he?

Also, let's take a look at Success. Whose success? How would we measure it? Do we gauge it by the number of buildings we build? How much oil we manage to pump out? How about the Iraqis themselves? Maybe their satisfaction would play a part.

[rex 555]

6. Did anyone see the KBR post?

It was big empty trucks hired by you know who hauling sailboat fuel for big money. This will be the next big scandal from Iraq. When you have a license to steel,have at it.

Cheney's mu'fund (blind trust)is heavy into Haliburton. and of course the annual "pension" of over $300,000.
He hates his daughter(lesbian),his wife is um a real team player. Write books about how we need to live. I guess they are full filled Racketeers.

[Demeter]

7. WHAT Progress? WHAT Success?

What is the man drinking, or otherwise ingesting? Progess means that things move forward, get better, show signs of improvement.

The only way things are going to get better in Iraq is to get US out of there. Then let the Iraqis settle their own differences (we could de facto split off Kurdistan--so what if the Turks object--and save the best of the bunch from the others).

And that WILL only happen when we get Bush out of America! One way tickets to the Hague, now on sale...