gandalf: What you’re describing is classic “groupthink” in conjunction with a desire to accommodate the new Administration’s stance on Iraq.
I would strongly disagree with the “eventual peaceful self rule” scenario, though. Unlike Eastern Europe, you have the double whammy of 30 years of brutally repressive rule by Saddam (which, IMHO, was actually worse than what we saw in Eastern Europe with the possible exception of Romania), plus three competing factions, all of whom virulently hate each other.
The other problem is that Saddam really wasn’t all that beaten down. He was taking in millions from the UN Food-For-Oil program, and was working on rebuilding both his military and a WMD program. I don’t think he was cowed by any stretch of the imagination, and I do believe he was plotting an eventual return to glory. Like I opined earlier, he did fancy himself a modern day Salah-al-Din and, like Nasser before him, planned on regional hegemony.
I would completely agree with you on al-Qaeda BTW. Major pooch screwing on our part, along with propping up that bozo Musharraf in Paki. That one is gonna come back to haunt us, as will our continued unwillingness to confront the Saudis and force internal change there.
