Teen girl lover:

May 20, 2002 8:45 a.m.
The U.S. Will Not Go to War Against Iraq
Not ever.

Are you starting to get the feeling I’m getting, the feeling expressed in my title? The feeling that there will be no war against Iraq? Not this year, not next year, not ever?

Let me emphasize the word “feeling.” As a responsible columnist, I am going to do my best to justify my title with facts. It all starts with a feeling, though — a slow-rising, ever-strengthening feeling that it just ain’t going to happen. I spend a couple of hours every morning surfing news sites, reading the papers, gathering material for NR editorials and web columns. I go to functions where I meet people who know stuff. I read, I listen. Occasionally I pick up a revealing fact. Much more often, I just accumulate impressions. Reader, I have accumulated the impression that the U.S. will not go to war against Iraq. But let me do my best to justify that.

First of all, this is no way to make war…

Alternet:

Some, like Ron Dellums, think that the Iraq issue may have begun as an election ploy but has gotten out of hand, making war highly likely. Don Hazen uses the metaphor of a “runaway train”.

I doubt it. This train has a definite schedule. It will be making stops a few days after Nov. 5.

I say this because I don’t think the Bush administration is insane. They realize that unilateral action, especially without UN approval, would turn much of the world against the United States. It would unify Islamic factions that otherwise have nothing to unify them. If we succeed in overthrowing Saddam Hussein, Iraq could become dominated by its Islamic fundamentalist majority. We would legitimize as a matter of international law the right of one country to bomb and invade another so long as the other country possesses or might soon possess, nuclear or biological weapons and/or has ignored several UN resolutions — a prescription for mayhem on a worldwide scale.

No, after the election we will stand down. The administration will argue and most parties will agree, that without our saber rattling the United Nations would never have acted so decisively and inspectors would not have been given free rein in Iraq. We will argue that we have actually strengthened the United Nations. Peace with honor.

Counterpunch:

by BEN TRIPP

Pop quiz. When you hear the expression “regime change”, which of the following best describes what you think it means:

A) bloody coup
B) change of government
C) leader of regime changes mind

If you said A) or B), you would be in the majority for once. Only one man believes the correct answer is C). Unfortunately that man is George W. Bush, the leider of the world. I was going to say the free world, but at this point Bush couldn’t give it away for free. He’ll have to pay a hauling company to dump it somewhere. Yes, children, our number one statesman has done it again: he has taken reality as everyone understands it and twisted it into a balloon animal, leaving us to determine if it’s a giraffe, a wiener dog, or a pretzel. I quote:

“[I]f he [Saddam Hussein] were to meet all the conditions of the United Nations, the conditions that I’ve described very clearly in terms that everybody [even a monkey] can understand, that in itself will signal the regime has changed.” (Italics mine.)

It looks like we’re not going to war with Iraq. The yellow ribbon industry is already sagging in early market reports.

Wang:

What is likely to happen is that North Korea will reserve the right to make a bomb, but will let nuclear inspectors in. The United States will reaffirm that it has no hostile intent against North Korea, and because this is a reaffirmation, the United States can claim that no concessions were made. Look for a softer policy toward North Korea in the next few months.
Also let me go out on a limb and say that the United States is probably not going to war with Iraq. I don’t think that the inspectors are going to find enough to justify a war, and I suspect that part of the reason Bush is starting to talk more about the economy is that he can talk less about Iraq and North Korea.
One thing to keep in mind is that newspapers are biased toward the dramatic as well as biased toward focusing on things going wrong. We are not going to war, just doesn’t grab the headlines.

Just for fun, I dare you to check out these links: on the “implications” of not going to war with Iraq.

I just thought you may enjoy a little late night dogging. No comment or intent implied.