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Opening Arguments

Exit strategy

Finally, a columnist says out loud what many people seem to believe:

So allow me to propose the unthinkable: Maybe, just maybe, our best option is to restore Saddam Hussein to power.

Yes, I know. Hussein is a psychotic mass murderer. Under his rule, Iraqis were shot, tortured and lived in constant fear. Bringing the dictator back would sound cruel if it weren't for the fact that all those things are also happening now, probably on a wider scale.

[. . .]

The disadvantages of reinstalling Hussein are obvious, but consider some of the upside. He would not allow the country to be dominated by Iran, which is the United States' major regional enemy, a sponsor of terrorism and an instigator of warfare between Lebanon and Israel. Hussein was extremely difficult to deal with before the war, in large part because he apparently believed that he could defeat any U.S. invasion if it came to that. Now he knows he can't. And he'd probably be amenable because his alternative is death by hanging.

I know why restoring a brutal tyrant to power is a bad idea. Somebody explain to me why it's worse than all the others.

Bring back the psychotic, murdering dictator. Heck of an exit strategy. Just imagine how much better off the world would be if we had left all the psychotic murderers alone. All those people who died neddlessy in World War II! Somebody explain to us why leaving Hitler alone would have been so much worse.

Posted in: Current Affairs

Comments

Jeff Pruitt
Fri, 12/01/2006 - 6:55am

I can't stand Jonathan Chait. After his idiotic stances and comments leading up to and supporting this war he has no credibility. He, Friedman, Kristol (the brains behind Quayle - heh) and the rest of the Nostrodamus-class (including Chait and ALL the New Republic staff) should just disappear into irrelevancy at the very least. After being wrong so many times, they've lost their punditry credentials in my opinion...

tim zank
Fri, 12/01/2006 - 1:55pm

Chait says "It turns out, however, that there is something more awful than totalitarianism, and that is endless chaos and civil war."

At least with chaos and civil war there is a shot at freedom.

Laura
Sat, 12/02/2006 - 6:17am

Insane idea. No one can think of something better than that?? Sad.

Steve Towsley
Sat, 12/02/2006 - 12:24pm

I understand the sentiment when looking at what a patchwork nation like Iraq does with its freedom when relieved of dictatorial opression. I imagine we long for a benign king in situations like this, a Richard the Lionheart for Robin Hood to turn England over to, with a parade, a rousing song and a fanfare in the denouement. Sadly, real life almost never offers such a candidate -- at least not one the politicians will inform us about.

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