politics and security

Submitted by Peter J. Herz (United States), Sep 11, 2005 at 17:27

In general, Dr. Pipes has gotten it right. It's also worth noting that while holed up in Khartoum, Osama Bin Laden and Co. were in frequent contact with Sadam Hussein's diplomats in the city. This is a worrying enough factoid, and gives the lie to the supposition that Sadam's "secularist" regime would necessarily be opposed to OBL's Islamicist radicals.

Yet, politics has a wide range of variables. A Middle East with the Gulf States, Iran, and Israel all frightened by Sadam Hussein might have had a few of its own surprising dynamics had the US not invaded.

Now that the USA is in Iraq and Afghanistan, it has to win--and this means defining and maintaining a desirable peace. Yet, after doing this, the USA should do some hard thinking about whether it is still determined to keep history from happening elsewhere in the world.

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