Doug, face it. Saddam is no threat to the US. He is no threat to his neighbours either, or they would be squealing. He is probably no threat to Israel, but if he is, so what? Let Israel sort it. They are much farther down the WMD route than Iraq, thanks to US indulgence.

Perhaps you could just enlarge a bit on why the US had to take one side or the other in the Iraq-Iran war? Or why it had to defend the feudal dictatorship in Kuwait, which which Iraq had an arguable claim? Or what its interest was in arming Bin Laden, the Mujahadeen etc?

Once you start talking about US national itnerests, you might as well go the whole hog and admit that the US interest this time is that Iraq has got the second biggest proven oil reserves in the world. Looks like some of that (the whole of the northern oilfield, according to one rumour) would go to Turkey in return for Turkey making itself a US launchpad. But that still leaves plenty of spoils to justify US "interest".

Those in favour of US agression seem to cherish some vision of a docile democracy once Saddam is gone. Not likely. Iraq would be carved up, with Turkey getting the biggest slice, but Iran and Syria also in at the feeding frenzy.

Turkey is already massively the strongest power in the region - a secular democracy saved from islamic fundamentalism only by its army (more than 95 per cent of the people are muslim). Siding with the US would almost certainly be the end of democracy in Turkey - making that country a natural next enemy for the states, but one many times stronger than Iraq is now. This was a big factor in why the gulf war ended where it did, last time round.

One day, but surely too late, the US administration will realise that its best line of defence would have been to start building some friendships around the planet. More likely they won't get the message until Iraq has been trashed, and been followed by a few more WTCs in San Francisco, LA, Washington, etc. Even then, they won't be too concerned, provided America has WON, and the popular vote is still secure.