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Originally Posted by baja fan
So should we attack ever country that hates Israel. We are gonna be busy!
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I've seen this argument before and I've never understood it. Just because other countries share some of the characteristics that led us to attack Iraq doesn't mean we need to attack those other countries. For one thing, there is no rule that you have to be consistent with your foreign policy. For another, despite similarities, all of these countries also have dissimilar characteristics from Iraq.
For example, Saddam wasn't the only ME dictator who supported anti-Israeli terrorism. Syria supports such terrorism as well and, in all likelihood, to a larger degree. But Syria wasn't under our thumb after losing a war to us. Syria wasn't subject to a decade's worth of UN sanctions and critical resolutions demanding verifiable disarmament. Syria doesn't have the resource base to grow into the threat that Saddam did if sanctions were ever lifted.
Another example, Saddam was said to be pursuing nuclear weapons. We now know that North Korea is much further along with their program and in all likelihood already has a few nuclear weapons. Some say that if we invaded Iraq for WMD, then we must invade NK. But NK has a significant deterent already in place where Iraq did not. A new regime in NK will not have much impact on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, while a new regime in Iraq might.
We attacked Iraq for a basket full of reasons. No other country in the world shares all of these characteristics. Whether it was the right choice or not, remains to be seen. But it isn't a very powerful argument to say that if we attack Iraq we must also attack all countries who have anything in common with Iraq.