(Washington Post) Jim Hoagland - O mighty munificent Saladin of our age: Gonna miss you, Saddam. This is the week you sealed your fate. Your 12,000-page whitewash on weapons of mass destruction you have known and loved gives the Bush team a decent shot at securing a second Security Council resolution authorizing the use of force against you. The sighs of relief that U.S. officials exhaled when they got a first glance at the report tell me the administration will alter its strategy and pursue a second resolution actively. Your neighbors in Iran also got in on the act in a decisive way. Their national security guys brought Iraqi opposition leaders to Tehran and splashed their meetings in the press. That puts a public Iranian stamp of approval on regime change in Iraq. This coming weekend, 350 Iraqi dissidents are meeting in London, with U.S. encouragement and financial help, to write a unity document that will guide an Iraqi transition.
2002-12-13 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive