Programmer: not a bad summation…

the rosy/optimistic line of reasoning employed in arguing that Iraq invasion was a mistake is unfair and not rigorous…

1) the sanctions were a failure and set to be lifted even as they were pretty much ignored by much of Europe. The “500,000/year Iraqi children dying due to sanctions” UN/NGO crowd were close to calling Saddam ok wrt WMD and letting him off the hook. As of this date he & Iran would have been in a WMD arms race and there would have been nothing the West would have done.

2) after Desert Storm the requirement was growing for a UN/World sanctioned use of force. Bush 41 had done such a good job of building the coalition that it was becoming a standard that couldn’t be met to the effect that no international use of force could be used. Operation Iraqi Freedom has reset that bar a bit lower.

3) Libya’s surrender of nuclear ambitions would hardly have happened without OIF and who knows what other salutory effects the beat down on Saddam has fostered by making at least some dictators/movements become more circumspect in their oppression.

There are other points to raise but courtesy here prevails – the idea is that in order to argue OIF was a mistake one has to take a hard look at the possible downside of letting Saddam (& sons) continue, not just the rosy picture of the most optimistic outcomes imagined.

As an example look at the butcher’s bill in Darfur (much bigger than OIF actually) as the UN and the African States attempt to talk and monitor their way through that humanitarian crisis with no end in sight except the lives of the poor in the south.