Breeze: It’s interesting, but it almost appears that you consider Bush’s actions to have happened in a vacuum, versus being a continuation (with a little aberrant jaunt into Iraq) of US policy in the Mideast since at least the late 1940s (following the exit of the British from the world stage after WWII).

Regime change in Iraq was strongly advocated by Clinton from the beginning and, as much as everyone wants to dress up the Iraq invasion as a Bush family vendetta, the possibility of it has been on the books for quite a while. Granted, Bush certainly ginned up the casus belli with a strongly influenced NIE, but a little quick research on the internet will show the bellicose pronouncements of such leading Clintonistas as Albright, Berger and Clarke during both terms of the Clinton Administration.

You hammer away at Bush’s “illogicality”, but there is nothing substantive to support that assertion. You conveniently ignore Saudi Arabia and the virulent Wahhabist teachings of the clerics there. And now you’re conflating Obama’s actions with a new “keep the nukes from al-Qaeda” policy that I’ve heretofore never heard of.

One last thing: If Pakistan was aware of the location of al-Qaeda and Taliban operations within their own borders, why wouldn’t they simply go after them using the Pakistani Army and Air Force? Pakistan is clearly aware of the dangers of using US assets/resources/forces, especially given how much anger and blowback it would generate among it’s own citizens.