Monday, January 20, 2003

I am repeatedly amazed that our (supposedly) best strategic minds haven't figured out that Saddam can see that it is in his best interest to essentially cooperate with the inspections while appearing to do so grudgingly to save face. If they find stuff, inspections work, no need for war. If they don't, nothing found, no need for war.

Saddam knows he really doesn't need those weapons. What he needs is for sanctions to be lifted, maybe even the dropping of the no-fly zones. So he will continue with inspection theater until most parties are satisfied that either he has none or essentially all of them have been found and destroyed. When sanctions are lifted he can really get back into the business of bringing his own population to heel.

As distasteful as that sounds, our options for countering that, short of an illegal war, are limited. Are there any really good ideas out there?

No comments: