[lit-ideas] Re: How the Spartans got their hoplites back
- From: John Wager <john.wager1@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 08 Jan 2008 14:24:56 -0600
Lawrence Helm wrote:
I can understand why neither the Spartans nor the Athenians considered
themselves beaten at the time of the Peace of Niceas in 421. What I
can’t understand is why Saddam Hussein did not consider himself beaten
in 1991. Did he really believe that American forces were afraid to
come after him at Bagdad in 1991 as he claimed? I can understand why
he might say that for purposes of political prestige, but I can’t
understand how he could really believe that.
Perhaps he was crazy enough to believe that any American president would
see that Hussein was actually a stabilizing element in the region, that
it would take an iron hand to keep the Kurds, the Shia and the Sunnis
from each others' throats, that the U.S.'s national interest was in
having an uninterrupted flow of oil, that any war to remove him would
cost the U.S. more than it would gain the U.S., and that no sane
American president would get into a situation where the U.S. put its
military between three opposing forces in a country that had a long
history of hostility to occupation?
Naa, he couldn't have been THAT crazy.
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