9831608
This reads like an alternate history to me. Before the drumbeat of war ramped up the Iraq sanctions regime was on it's last leg, same with the No-Fly Zones. If Bush had taken a different approach and never sounded the war drums on Iraq, Saddam would have won on his waiting it out gambit.
I've said many times that I agreed with Bush in the post-911 environment that Iraq needed to be confronted militarily if Iraq did not let the UN inspectors in. Iraq was in violation of international law when no inspectors were allowed in. The recorded history is exactly what I cite because it was Bush who appealed to the UN to commit to resuming tough inspections and giving Iraq a
FINAL OPPORTUNITY TO COMPLY with all those violations that so many cite. I suppose it would appear to be an alternate to history if one has no clue what the
FINAL OPPORTUNITY TO COMPLY language in UN Resolution 1441 was all about.
The conclusion that Iraq had no WMD was a conclusion that the UN could have peacefully determined without all the bloodshed and terror, death and destruction and financial costs that the Bush invasion caused. So sanctions would have been rightfully lifted (NO WMD) and for that reason you have no point.
And Neither Kurds in the North nor Shiites in the south were under any kind of impending threat because of the deterioration of the NFZ operations. Even if they were maintained after the UN set up its long term monitoring regime in Iraq, the NFZ would still be much less expensive to operate than the nine year quagmire that was Iraq.
Bush also beat some drums for peace and according to him the UN was they way to remove the threat and do it peacefully. So your strict 'drumbeat for war' is a mess if you think that it is the true history.
