Parallel Histories
George Soros, the billionaire philanthropist, makes a very interesting point in one of his latest books. I do not have the book with me at the moment, but the import of the following is the same.
He describes a leader who builds weapons of mass destruction to test them out against his enemies. A leader who isn't afraid to run the risk of sidetracking world opinion by wantonly bombing another nation. Someone who at the slightest of whims would wage war and cross borders. At the end of about 20 lines of rhetoric, he names this leader: George Bush.
A reviewer of this book remarked that he did believe George Soros could just as easily have been talking about Saddam Hussein. The man who Bush launched the war against in the first place.

9/11 changed the concepts of modern politics. It has brought forward a truth, which if Richard Clarke might be believed, is one that the Bush Administration found hard to accept. The real threats to the "democracy loving west" didn't just come from rogue states with nuclear missiles anymore. That maybe Nostradamus did have something right in his predictions to foretell of the infamous anti-Christ rising in the Middle East.
Mostly rebel groups fighting for random causes are fighting todays wars. The real threat to world peace ofcourse comes not from these groups but from independent, ideologically charged global terrorist organisations. Something that was proved deadly right on the morning of September 11.

George Bush will be forgiven for destroying the Taliban, long believed to have been supporters of the Al Qaeda. No one will challenge the legitimacy of allied actions in Afghanistan. The world's sympathy was and shall remain with the people who lost their lives in New York and Washington on that fateful morning. I use the phrase "allied action" deliberately.

After that, Bush got it all wrong. He went back to outdated policy that America's greatest threat did infact come from rogue states, as he had always believed. Colin Powell made an unprecedented but unconvincing presentation at the UN to try and garner support that Iraq had nuclear weapons and would use them against targets of opportunity. No one seemed to buy it. Not least the Germans and the French.

I'll try to avoid the normal accusations that the Iraq war was about the oil. However I would like to ask some questions.
American Intelligence knows of Korean nuclear weapons and missiles. They've even named their so-called axis of evil and yet, out of all these, the Americans choose to strike only Iraq.

Was it to complete the wishes of a father who couldn't successfully finish something he'd started? or was it because the consequences of wars in other countries would prove economically unviable with little or no returns on the massive investments that the US and it's so called coalition of the willing was making in terms of human lives, not to mention military hardware spending! I use the term "coalition of the willing" to differentiate it from the allies against terror.

Michael Moore has an excellent book out about the War in Iraq i which he asks several hard hitting questions besides making compelling arguments. Check it out: "Dude, where's my country".

In closing, Will Bush and Blair be forgiven for Iraq, lets put it this way, 50 years from now, school text books in the middle east would have George Bush's and Tony Blair's pictures right next to Adolph Hitler. British and American teachers will hail the two as the leaders of the fight to preserve world peace and democracy.
The past is judged through the study of history. In this case, the world will always have two pasts.

Constitutional Nightmares

The least that can be said about what the Bush Administration has done in Iraq is that it has atleast acted in consonance with America's long history of flawed foreign policy manoeuvres. Short sighted at best, The US has had a string of incidents where it plays the role of the bitten hand that feeds the hungry. Afghanistan, Iraq and more recently, Haiti stand out as prime examples. Today it plays the same dangerous game of treading on thin ice in Iraq and Afghanistan (again!). Consider this scenario. Presidents Hamid Karzai and Pervez Musharraf are assassinated. The Taliban along with financial backing from the Al-Qaeda takes over. Sleeper cells spring up into action across their terrorist network (this is known to be across atleast 60 countries). The global war on terrorism becomes exactly that; A global war. Sounds far out? It's a worst-case scenario one that a recovering US economy is not yet willing to commit to. So why the fuss over the constitution? Well simply enough, pulling military assets out of Iraq as soon as possible means that the US is thus able to relieve it's already over stretched forces. The problem with Iraq is that the US through all its negotiations has still been unable to get the various factional heads to see eye to eye on key issues. Considering Iraq, like Afghanistan is still a highly feudal society, generating a consensus on issues such as veto rights and representative governance should take a while. When Afghanistan's Loya Jirga sat down to draft it's own constitution, experts claimed that it would be a meaningless exercise unless there was any improvement in the security situation. The same applies to Iraq. Summing up, I wish the best of luck to President Bush. Best of luck to Administrator Bremer but most of all, Best of luck to the People of Iraq!