Condi Rice: There Is No Connection Between Iraq War and Regional Instability
George Stephanopoulos posed this question to Condoleezza Rice on ABC's This Week today:
STEPHANOPOULOS: But before the war in Iraq many argued that going into Iraq would stir up a hornet's nest. The administration strongly disagreed and here's what Vice President Cheney had to say in August 2002.
CHENEY (VIDEO): I believe the opposite is true. Regime change in Iraq would bring about a number of benefits to the region, extremists in the region would have to rethink their strategy of jihad, moderates throughout the region would take heart, and our ability to advance the Israeli/Palestinian peace process would be enhanced.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Extremists now appear to have been emboldened. The moderates appear to be in retreat. There is no peace process. There is war. How do you answer administration critics who say that the administration's actions have unleashed, have helped unleash the very hostilities you hoped to contain?
This was Rice's answer:
RICE: Well, first of all, those hostilities were not very well contained as we found out on September 11th, so the notion that policies that finally confront extremism are actually causing extremism, I find grotesque.
Riiiigghht. And your explanation for why, three years after regime change, extremists in the region have not rethought their strategy, moderates no longer exist, and the Israeli/Palestinian peace process is dead, is ....?
3 comments:
As if there was no violence or extremism before we went to Iraq?
There has been war for 50 years in Israel. There should be no restraint and no tolerance.
As if there was no violence or extremism before we went to Iraq?
Sure there was. But the point of regime change in Iraq was to spread peace, moderation, and democracy in the Middle East -- not to increase the level of violence and extremism. Just because there was violence and extremism before we went to Iraq, doesn't mean that our goal should have been to create MORE violence and extremism. Iraq was already violent and extreme before we invaded, so it doesn't matter if it gets even more violent and extreme? What sense does that make?
Oh, and regarding your "no restraint and no tolerance" remark: I have to disagree. I don't believe in genocide or mass murder.
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