| | The number 1 reason the US invaded Iraq was to take
the greatest army the Arab world has ever seen and
smash it to pieces.
There was no way Bush was going to articulate that.
While large-scale psychological change didn't happen
overnight, it did show the Arab world that the US was
serious. Remember that one of Al Queda's recruitment
pitches was that the US was weak and full of cowards.
'We punch them hard enough in the nose and they will
run away.' This is the same argument Osama gave to
the Taliban who were concerned about the 9/11 plot.
No nation-state considered Afghanistan anything but a
two-bit hellhole of a country. Big deal if the US
goes in there and kills some sheep-herders. Iraq has
a different standing and this was meant as a message
to other nation-states. Libya seems to have got the
message. So have the Saudis to an extent. Iran seems
to be suffering from a failure of imagination. There
is no situation in which the US would invade Iran, but
that does not mean they can start passing out nukes
willy-nilly as their thug of a president suggested.
If they keep pushing, Iran will be dealt with by bombs
of one kind or another.
While that was the number 1 reason for attacking Iraq,
it wasn't the only one. There is a near endless list
including ending sanctions, ending the no-fly zones,
etc., but it is a mistake to assume that the decision
can be boiled down to one or even three reasons. The
simple fact was that containment was not working and
the status quo could not continue forever.
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