re: #179 FurryOldGuyJeans

The immediate national security issue was what should have waited, the humanitarian issue was long over-due with both theaters.

Clinton’s framing of the reasons for the interventions was disingenuous, the actual reasons for going were not.

Likewise, Bush should have just come out and said we cannot leave Saddam in power, because the longer we do, the more dangerous he becomes, and the harder he will be to deal with. It wasn’t a case of overwhelming national danger if we didn’t do it right then, but it would have progressively become one at the same time that doing something about it would have become progressively more difficult - which is why it would have to be done eventually anyway, and it was better to do it sooner than later. Bush should have explained it in those terms, and he didn’t.