strainer

It was a major miscalculation. With 175,000 U.S. troops massing on the border, he should have figured Saddam would suddenly start giving lipservice at least to the inspections, and then the world would turn against the liberation of Iraq.

Chalk one up for Saddam.

Or is it?

Keep in mind, prior to the U.S. troop massing and drum beating, there was not hundreds of inspectors pouring through Iraq humilating Sadaam and blowing up 150 scud missles.

Without the U.S. "arrogance" there would be no inspections. Only when Saddam became utterly convinced we were preparing for attack did he let the U.N. in.

The key to the game all along was to let the world know we were perfectly willing to go unilateral. Absent that, Saddam never would have taken anything seriously as he can always buy (or threaten) off a few other members on the UN security council.

Now we have an effective inspections regime that is (sort of) working and we haven't fired a shot.

So my guess is Bush will delay the war for a few months. Fuck the weather, and the moon too.

As time goes by Iraq will eventually be completely disarmed by the U.N. Or maybe, they will find something really big and he'll kick them out again.

And then we will attack.

Either way, the U.S. eventually wins. I'd say the Bush strategy is working brilliantly. Clinton tried to restart the inspections process his entire presidency, and never could.

Bush did it in 2 years and hasn't fired a shot yet.

And even if I am wrong and we attack anyway now, Bush has managed to (for the first time in history) get an enemy to start destroying his biggest weapons while awaiting an attack.

Amazing.