Why Iraq?

I honestly don't know why we did it. The first year or so after the invasion I was still too stunned that it actually happened to even begin to understand what the reasoning was.

Was it just to make some money? Sure that was part of it, but do they really think that way? Can human beings cynically break the peace for profit?

I suppose they can, but I'm still not willing to see it that way, I think of the war profiteers, the contractors, the mercenary groups, the manufacturers of super-duper-fun-bombs as a cheering section, like a little devil on the shoulder, not in charge, but clearly interested in the outcome.

So why would sane people, working with the information that we know they had at the time, take us into this war?

Clearly it wasn't "the nexus of weapons of mass destruction and terrorist networks" as we were told. First of all, it is irresponsible to group poison gas and smallpox with nuclear bombs. They're not even close. We've been killing people with poison and smallpox for centuries, it's awful but it's not even close to the scale of nuclear weapons. Second, there wasn't even any poison gas or smallpox!

So, I tried to walk a mile in their shoes, I tried to think, what would I do?

It isn't easy, I had to hit myself in the head with a hammer, but I managed.

The sanction scheme that was imposed on Hussein at the end of the first gulf war was clearly not succeeding in removing Saddam from power, and could not be sustained for much longer. European countries were pushing to have the sanctions lifted on humanitarian grounds. Their concern was legitimate, the sanction scheme seemed only to punish the people who disliked Hussein most, actually solidifying his power rather than undermining it.

The US could not continue to enforce the sanction regime and no-fly zones for much longer, because the Saudis could not allow US troops to linger in the kingdom. After ten years of western armies in Arabia, al-Qaeda was attacking the royal family; Saudi clerics were condemning the king for allowing the ‘infidels’ to remain so long after the danger had passed, and (god forbid) Saudi women were demanding the right to drive themselves to the grocer.

If the US were to leave Saudi Arabia, the no-fly zones could not be enforced, Hussein could reassert his authority over the Kurdish region (we had to have the Saudi airbases to patrol the northern no-fly zone, because if we had to rely on Turkey to let us fly from there, they'd tell us to go fly a kite instead.) and could theoretically once again pose a threat to Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.

It would have been very unlikely, however that Iraq would actually invade anything. In reality, it would be a minor loss of prestige for the United States, we would not be seen as the sole power-broker for the region, Europe, Russia and China would become more important players in the oil extraction business, we'd lose the control we've had over the region since the USSR tanked in 89.

So time was running out, either leave Saudi Arabia, abandon the Kurds (again), keep a few bases in the Emirates and Qatar, and try to continue the obviously failing sanction regime or...

In walks Cheney or Wolfowitz or whoever's feeling clever, and that devil starts to convince us it'll be easy, we have new super-duper-smartypants-bombs that win wars risk free...

Then the usual things, the things that always get said before a war, "It'll all be over in a few months, we don't even need to use the whole army, and best of all, it'll pay for itself!"

Then, without really deciding to do it, we have to start the ball rolling. We start moving ships and equipment into the region, troop levels are built up in Kuwait. At home, we have to start a propaganda blitz, scare the voters, tell them Osama bin Laden (or Emmanuel Goldstein or whoever it is this week) is in cahoots with Iraq, and planning to nuke an Amerrican city any minute now, talk about "mushroom clouds" and then threaten their congressmen the week before the election, demand that they give you power to invade or you'll run ads talking about what anti-american sissies they are. Then, just because you can, run the ads anyway, and see if you can't squeeze out a little extra breathing room in the checks and balances department.

Now we have to do it, the people are actually demanding it. We've got to whether we want to or not, and anyone who doesn't want to is obviously pro-terrorist.

Gosh, in hindsight it seems kinda sinister.