Demosthenes has a good post up about Josh Marshall's Washington Monthly article about Iraq, which I haven't yet read.
What he doesn't seem to know is exactly what he's advocating. Josh et al, listen when I tell you: if Iraq is not connected to 9/11, then the "war on terrorism" cannot be extended there without grave, grave consequences that I don't think Josh has figured out yet. The United States has repeatedly said that their war is with terrorists generally and Al-Qaeda specifically, yet they have found only the slimmest of ties between either and Iraq, ties much more tenuous than those between, say, Saudi Arabia and terrorism/Al Qaeda. Everybody knows this, internationally, so absolutely no one outside the United States would buy the argument that "he's going to help terrorists realsoonnow". What would they believe? They would believe the truth:
The United States is now willing and able to remove any and all regimes it doesn't like by whatever means necessary.
