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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 30-Jan-2010
30-Jan-10 News - Tony Blair faces questions about Iraq

Web Log - January, 2010

30-Jan-10 News - Tony Blair faces questions about Iraq

US will sell $6 billion in arms to Taiwan, infuriating China.

Tony Blair faces the Iraq War inquiry

I watched a couple of hours of the questioning of Tony Blair on the BBC on Friday morning, and I noted that the Iraq War Inquiry commissioners asked Blair a lot of tough questions, but they never laid a glove him.

It was discouraging to me that this inquiry even has to be held, and even more discouraging because of the loons outside the meeting hall calling Blair a liar and war criminal. Blair was cleared of all those charges in 2004 in the the Hutton Inquiry, but the loons still persist.

The most important thing that I heard Blair say didn't even appear in the BBC story, but does appear in the Reuters coverage:

"Sometimes what is important is not to ask the March 2003 question but to ask the 2010 question. Supposing we had backed off this military action, supposing we had left Saddam and his sons who were going to follow him in charge of Iraq, people who had used chemical weapons, caused the death of over a million people? What we now know is that he retained absolutely the intent and the intellectual know-how to restart a nuclear and a chemical weapons programme when the inspectors were out and the sanctions changed."

This paragraph is a devastating response to the loons, but they're apparently incapable of even the simplest coherent thought.

I've made the point in the past that the only reason we know that Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) is because of the invasion. Obviously, therefore, if there had been no invasion, then we still wouldn't know to this day. This continuing uncertainty would have destabilized the entire region, and might well have triggered an attack on Iraq by either Israel or Iran.

But Blair carries this a lot farther. My assumption was that if there had been no invasion, then the status quo (uncertainty) would have continued. But Blair points out that it was not a choice between invasion and status quo. Without the invasion, it would have been politically impossible to continue the sanctions and inspections. And once the inspections ended, Saddam had every intention of reconstituting his WMD program.

So without the invasion, we would have had Iraq developing WMDs. Saddam had used WMDs during the Iran/Iraq war, and so Iran would have sped up its own program to develop its own WMDs. There might even have been similar nervous reactions in Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Syria.

So, without the invasion, we might have several countries in the region developing nuclear weapons and other WMDs.

This is so obvious, but even the simplest reasoning appears to be out of reach of the loons.

Meanwhile, the Obama administration is getting into a situation in Afghanistan that is possibly even more dangerous than the Iraq situation was. Like Blair, Obama will eventually have to face questioning about every word in every sentence he says about the subject.

China may sanction US companies after arms sales to Taiwan

The government in China is furious over the Obama administration's announcement, on Friday, of $6 billion dollars in weapons, including Patriot anti-missile systems, helicopters, mine-sweeping ships and communications equipment to Taiwan, according to a report in the Washington Post.

I would guess that the anti-missile systems are to be used to defend against the 1500 or so missiles that China is ready at any time to launch at Taiwan.

China was "strongly indignant" about the arms sales to Taiwan, according to the article, and warned that they would have a "serious negative impact" on U.S.-China cooperation. China may sanction US companies, and the planned visit of Chinese President Hu Jintao to Washington in April may be canceled.

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A commentary in Financial Times Deutschland (translation) says that negotiations are going on for an EU bailout of Greece, despite the fact that such a bailout would violate the EU constitution. However, German Chancellor Angela Merkel opposes a bailout because of Greece's history of lying about deficits.

But the talk of bailout encouraged investors, and pushed down credit default swap prices slightly from their historic highs, according to Bloomberg. (High credit default swap prices indicate an investor belief that Greece is going to default on its bond payments.)

Iran's hardliners are about to purge Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the remaining high-level moderate among the Islamic Revolution survivors, from his government post, according to an analysis in the Asian Times. From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, however, this will only outrage the opposition further, as Iran is in a generational Awakening era. (See "Theological split in Iran widens as opposition protests continue.")

(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 30-Jan-10 News - Tony Blair faces questions about Iraq thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be posted anonymously.) (30-Jan-2010) Permanent Link
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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 30-Jan-2010 30-Jan-10 News - Tony Blair faces questions about Iraq

Tony Blair faces the Iraq War inquiry

China may sanction US companies after arms sales to Taiwan

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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 30-Jan-2010
30-Jan-10 News - Tony Blair faces questions about Iraq