Daniel Davies:

I wish Saddam Hussein was still in power in Baghdad because if this were the case, then about 3,000 Iraqis would have been murdered by his regime and would be dead, the roughly 10,000 Iraqis we killed ourselves would still be alive, and we would most likely be well on our way to formulating a credible, sensible, properly resourced plan for getting rid of him and handling the aftermath.

Sebastian Holdsclaw:

This is pure fantasy. European countries and the UN were not in the process of figuring out how to get rid of Saddam just before bumbling George Bush talked them out of it. In January 2002 France, Germany and Russia were talking about having sanctions removed from Iraq and trade and diplomatic relations normalized. Even if he were one of those people who is easily impressed by European words decoupled from actions he couldn’t take comfort in the words. There wasn’t even a large rhetoric-only anti-Saddam pose being taken by European governments. At best there was the admission that he had been somewhat naughty in the past and aren’t we glad that sanctions have brought him to heel.

We would not be ‘most likely be well on our way to formulating a credible, sensible, properly resourced plan for getting rid of him’ if only the U.S. hadn’t invaded in 2003. Unless of course by ‘we’ he means the U.S. acting unilaterally. I understand the need to protect the leftist conscience, but let us at least stick to semi-plausible hypotheticals like “If we were lucky Saddam might have choked on a chicken bone.”

Needless to say, this is engendering a good discussion—a lot of it from the eminently sensible Gary Farber, whose blog you really should read on a regular basis if you’re not already.