So, what would be different or what would life be like if we had not made the choice to invade Iraq:
(dingbats) The life of Iraqis would be what it was before we came. The tyranny of Saddam Hussein would continue, but it would be contained without threat to us. Evil, yes. But there is evil everywhere, beginning these days in western Sudan.
(dingbats) We would be safer. There is danger everywhere in this age of terror, but our resources are bogged down in one place -- and could be there for many years. An example: those surveillance satellites that once were pointed at the Soviet Union and then at Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda have been pointed at Iraq for almost three years.
(dingbats) Afghanistan would be in better shape. And Osama and al Qaeda might be gone or rendered less effective. We cut and ran to Iraq, without accomplishing that vital mission, leaving the country that sheltered Osama to be fought over, again, by warlords of the drug trade and the crazily puritanical Taliban.
(dingbats) The United States would still be admired in most places and a feared superpower everywhere -- perhaps even liked a bit. Iraq, like Vietnam, has revealed the limits of our power, allowing enemeies everywhere to mock us.
(dingbats) We would be engaged in trying to contain the greater dangers in our adversaries North Korea and Iran -- and the dangers in the lands of our allies, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. But, again, we choose to look away from the reality and threat in those places.
(dingbats) We would be buying the weapons of mass destruction of the old Soviet Union. But now there is no money for that -- or for the problems of education and health care at home. There is only money for war and security.
(dingbats) We would be playing a useful role in trying, as always, to find a way to peace between Israel and the Arabs. Instead, our Arabic speakers and other intellectual assets are tied down trying to find out what is happening in the cities and regions of Iraq again under the control of fundamentalist zealots and thugs trying to kill our young men and women.
(dingbats) Lawrence Lindsey might still be President Bush’s chief economic adviser. But he was fired for truth-telling, for saying our costs in Iraq would be between $100 billion and $200 billion.
All that, I think, must have been way back in the President’s mind when he branded his war a "castastrophic success". It is, without doubt, a successful catastrophe.
