Oh fer Chrissakes! Can we get any more amateurish?

[Lorizael]

Originally posted by East Street Trader
Arrian

Is it your view, then, that had toppling Saddam Hussein and/or the notion of (somehow or other) turning Iraq into a democracy been the reasons advanced for the invasion it would have had little support?

I'd say so. In the past, the United States has always performed such operations (regime changes) covertly, in ways that do not require Congressional or public support. There's probably a reason for that.

[East Street Trader]

I must say I would be glad if it is the case that the US public does not want its armed forces to invade countries for those reasons.

There are numbers of oppressive regimes at any one time and any number of countries which do not go in for democracy. If the US is going to invade these countries the world is going to get much less stable.

I think that eventually an international mechanism may be found forcefully to get rid of Saddam Husseins or Mugabes or Pol Pots or Papa Docs or Hitlers but it is going to need a whole lot of co-operation and much stronger international institutions than we have yet developed to make such policing work.

[Arrian]

Originally posted by East Street Trader
Arrian

Is it your view, then, that had toppling Saddam Hussein and/or the notion of (somehow or other) turning Iraq into a democracy been the reasons advanced for the invasion it would have had little support?

Correct. It would've garnered *some* support, but not nearly enough. That sort of thing is liberal do-gooder crap (aka "neo-con"). Most Americans are dubious of such things, with good reason.

Oddly enough, that sort of liberal do-gooder crap did have some appeal to me, and if I had actually believed the US government was competant (and had some more international support in the endeavor), I might have been inclined to support "regime change." I remember thinking (back in 2002) that the sanctions regime was a total mess and something had to give. Saddam wasn't exactly a river to his people, and everyone was *****ing at us for being big meanies. It was getting annoying as hell.

But since it was clear that the US government hadn't a clue as to what to do once we kicked the hell out of the Iraqi Army, I recognized the cluster**** in advance. And now, looking back at it, as nice as removing a nasty dictator and setting up a democracy in his place sounds, it's a ****ing pipedream in most cases.

-Arrian

[Arrian]

I think that eventually an international mechanism may be found forcefully to get rid of Saddam Husseins or Mugabes or Pol Pots or Papa Docs or Hitlers but it is going to need a whole lot of co-operation and much stronger international institutions than we have yet developed to make such policing work.

Agreed. The United Nations isn't very good at it either, but something along those lines. The problem, of course, is that there has to be a broad concensus on such things, and we're nowhere near that.

-Arrian

[Patroklos]

Not to mention the same dictators are represented in the UN.

"So, uh, Mugaby. Do you want us us to kick you out?"

[Arrian]

This is kinda what I meant by concensus. Unfortunately, Zimbabwe's "voice" in the UN is Mugabe (or rather the guy Mugabe appoints), and so on and so forth.

-Arrian

[Victor Galis]

The problem with knocking down dictators, is that good democracy won't spring up in their place by itself. It may take decades of occupation, and no country today is willing to do it.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by East Street Trader
Arrian

Is it your view, then, that had toppling Saddam Hussein and/or the notion of (somehow or other) turning Iraq into a democracy been the reasons advanced for the invasion it would have had little support?

Lorizael and Arrian have already answered this well, but it's also worth remembering that the certerpiece of Bush's foreign policy "vision" when he ran in 2000 was an insistance that, under his administration, the US would not engage in nation-building. (Whoops!)

So not only would such reasons have been less popular in general, they would arguably have been particularly unpopular with his own supporters.