Quote:
Originally Posted by Parihaka
Yes. Any country can when it can demonstrate that it has both the will, the power and the international connections for it to triumph in a war.
Most important of these are the international connections, which is the main use of the UN, and Bush's greatest blunder.
He didn't need Powell to convince in open council, just needed back room consent.
Compare Iraq with Israel's attack on Hezbollah. While Israel messed it up, diplomatically it had and used an open checkbook. "Take your time" everyone said, "no hurry......"
And afterward the UN was falling over itself to clean up after them, again compare with Iraq.
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As I look at it, Iraq has ruined the US credibility as a leader of the world. And we are slowly veering to the Cold War days, even if the divide is not so pronounced.
China and Russia are making deep inroads into the global supremacy of the US and whereas it should have made no difference now that Russia is no longer what it was, the Iraq war has given rise amongst many that the US can do irrational (in the international sense) things that threatens the sovereign right of a nation to decide what is best for her. This gives rise to insecurity and hence nations scamper to find a counterweight resulting in a dent of US hegemony over the world.
The Israel issue is a different kettle of fish. While many nations may not approve of the Israeli highhandedness, the kidnapping of Israeli soldiers cannot be condoned and the action taken was justified. The Palestinian chaos and Hamas highhandedness and brutality in the lines of the Islamic fundamentalist terrorists is another reason why Israel is no longer taken to be the odd man out.
Further, all western powers and even Russia and China were fed up with the pigheadness of the Iranian PM. And so there was no opposition to Israel taking a shot at Hezbollah, the surrogate of Iran.
In defence of George Bush, I will say that he surely would have tried the back room negotiation and when that failed he produced his 'evidence' through Powell.
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