Saddam the Baathist (Baathism is a kind of socialism) had in his later years seen how the wind was blowing in the Arab world and begun to adorn his terror state with certain Islamic trappings. Cozy relations with Islamic terrorists suited his purposes. They had the same enemies -- Israel and the United States. But, like other Arab leaders, Saddam was aware of the Islamist threat. While the Islamists were at war with the West, they were also casting covetous glances at the secular states in the Arab world. Saddam followed the Sun Tzu logic to keep your friends close but your enemies closer.
The failure to find WMDs by this point is certainly puzzling. But the Democrats and the press -- most egregiously the BBC -- have adopted an interpretation that is simply childish. In Britain and the United States, liberals are charging that the governments of Blair and Bush purposely lied. In Britain at least, Blair’s chief accuser at the BBC, Andrew Gilligan, has himself been revealed to be a liar. But do the U.S. accusers really believe that Bush made it all up? If that were true, why did all of the intelligence services in the world as well as the U.N. Security Council conclude that Iraq did have those weapons? If it were true, why didn’t Hussein invite the U.N. inspectors into Iraq and prove that he had no weapons? Why throw the inspectors out altogether in 1998? Why risk and lose his kingdom for weapons he never had? It doesn’t make sense.
But even if (and it’s a big if) the weapons are never found, are we to conclude that the Bush administration took the nation into an aggressive war for oil or glory or some other goal? The Saddam regime was one of the most ghastly and horrific on the planet. On those grounds alone, the world should be thanking us for being willing to risk the lives of our soldiers to free the country. The regime was also a friend to every enemy of peace in the world. If Saddam had remained in power, gained nuclear weapons, and lived to menace the entire region and the world, President Bush would be condemned by history for failing to act before it was too late. For showing fortitude and good sense, he is condemned only by the small-minded.
(Correction: A previous column stated that the default rate for student loans was 40 percent. That was wrong. The rate reached 22.4 percent in 1990, but was most recently recorded as 5.4 percent. I misinterpreted a fact sheet and apologize for the error.)