As the Economist points out, the time to act against a potential aggressor is before they acquire nuclear weapons, in the this respect the Economist votes in favor of war with Iraq.
In terms of the implications of a war with Iraq, the two most important countries that the US must focus on today, for very different reasons, are Israel to the east and Pakistan to the west. Both have nuclear weapons and both are looking politically fragile.
Israel….
In Israel, a coalition government has collapsed, and Sharon has endured three no confidence votes, continuing Israeli/Palestinian violence is playing to the right. The CIA cautions against involvement against Iraq while there is violence in Israel. Remember the Patriot missile system in the gulf war - well they actually brought down none of the Iraqi Scuds - their success was propaganda. A cornered Saddam could launch a bio or chemical warhead at Israel and the Israel that the US persuaded not to retaliate during the gulf war, was a very different Israel.
The Patriot missile failure.
Pakistan…
Pakistan, a country whose name is an acronym, could easily Balkanize. Musharraf, a military dictator, who wants a ‘modernist, liberal’, Pakistan, is looking to be a better alternative than his democratically elected predecessor, who courted Islamic extremism. In this week’s NYT book reviews, Robert Kaplan picks two books about Pakistan which he calls a ‘potential nuclear version of Yugoslavia’ and argues convincingly for the sort of pragmatic tolerance of Musharraf as the lesser of many evils. He states that ‘prodding Pakistan toward stability and individual freedom is less a matter of the immediate return of democracy than of a sustained and nuanced American commitment to the country.’
Pakistan - the Eye of the Storm
Pakistan: In the Shadow of Jihad and Afghanistan
The idea of pragmatism in politics is usually abhorrent to the left, it smacks of things like the US involvement in Central America. I have no problem with ‘pragmatism’ it just requires real commitment and insight and I don’t associate the Bush administration with the word ‘nuance’. Winning against Iraq would be the easy part in a war that would require long term commitment, by both politicians and voters. Are voters in the US and UK going to stand by involvement that affects their own pockets, and are politicians going to remain interested for years to come? - after only a few months, the UK is already behind on its humanitarian aid payments to Afghanistan.
Lets face it - most software and computer hardware is crap. In most tech. organizations, design doesn’t exist or is part of marketing or engineering, something that would have managers from other product-based industries slapping their thighs and crying with laughter.
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