Philocrites

Right war, wrong time.

by Philocrites

The Kennedy School's Joseph Nye picks apart several deeply flawed aspects of Bush's case for war, like a purported link between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda, but concludes:

Those of us who are critical of the clumsy handling and timing of the war must admit that indefinite containment was unlikely to succeed.

Saddam Hussein had a record of taking high risks, a clear intention to develop weapons of mass destruction, and a proven willingness to use them.

Enforcing Security Council Resolutions 687 and 1441 is better than returning to the evasive politics of the 1990s when Saddam Hussein successfully defied a divided United Nations.

We multilateralists must now hope that the war is brief, that the Iraqi people will visibly welcome the removal of a tyrant, and that the reconstruction of Iraq will involve many countries and a United Nations role.

Nye believes the aftermath of war can "recover some of the legitimacy after the fact that the administration squandered before the war" — if the U.S. handles it correctly. His March 14 Washington Post op-ed identifies some of the merits and dangers of Bush's doctrine of preventive war.

Copyright © 2003 by Philocrites | Posted 24 March 2003 at 6:00 PM

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