Just before the Kay Report rekindled the question, Andrew Card said finding WMD in Iraq was "a moot point". Well, policy by deception is never a moot point. And this kind of thinking is not 'worthy of the office'. Beyond the severe damage to American credibility, the reason deception is off the charts in policy decisions is simple: if the reasons put forward for going to war are not the real ones, then there can not have been any discussion of the wisdom of goals and method. It seems the overriding reason for the war was in fact to seize the only Arab country we could, establish a major base in the midst of the middle east from which to project american power in an increasingly anti-american region, to better control geo-political development in the area, and guarantee the future flow of oil. Was this a good idea in the first place? If so, was invading Iraq the smartest way to do it? Was an open-ended confrontative presence in the heart of Arab mideast the best way to deal with a rising anti-western jihad? We never had those debates.

And, as in the case of recent massive legislative packages prepared in secret by the republicans in congress, the cloak of secrecy allows lots of other purposes which might not survive public scrutiny to be mingled in the policy process- in the case of Iraq, such drives aimed to finally get rid of Saddam, "defeat the terrorists in Iraq so we don't have to face them in our own country", launch a hypothetical wave of democratisation in the mideast, gain control of huge oil reserves, be in a better position to threaten Syria, Iran, and even Saudi Arabia, demonstrate the new policy of pre-emption in action and send a warning message to other rogue regimes, re-establish America as the indispensable power to be feared and placated in any theater of the world.

In fact, the Iraq invasion was clearly part of a wider policy of taking advantage of overwhelming American force superiority to aggressively shape the world to its own benefit. (see PNAC pdf) With the administration browbeating the public with terror threats, this uber-policy itself was never discussed; and now that the first execution of that policy has occurred without relevant discussion, the Bush administration asks the world to forget about these questions, and focus on bailing it out of the mess it created... without, of course, limiting its power in any way.

The administration's justifications for urgent war, Iraqi WMD and support of AlQuaeda, look even more surreal in retrospect, what with Saudi Arabia now so obviously the big Al Quaeda sponsor, and Pakistan the most likely Al Quaeda source for real WMD (...ref). So while we chased dragons in Iraq, the real problems on both scores reside with our principal 'allies' in the region, whose efforts on proliferation and Islamist funding have been opaque at best.
Such is the power of obsession.

And if you haven't yet read our previous pieces re Iraq Occupation, they are still very pertinent:
June 18: Quicksand in Iraq ... May 18: Bait Taken ... April 22: Hot Potato

A footnote: Iraqi Shiite Mega-Cleric Ali Sistani has a website. If you ever wondered what sharia was, here are the laws in all their detail- (... website)

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