I'm not sure how many people saw it.
But the big catch in Scott Pelley's interview with President Bush last
night, in my mind at least, was the new rationale for the invasion of
Iraq: to defend against future hypothetical scenarios.
Asked whether the invasion has made the Middle East more unstable, the president responds:
“Our administration took care of a source of instability in Iraq.
Envision a world in which Saddam Hussein was rushing for a nuclear
weapon to compete against Iran.”
Well, yes, imagine that.
When I first read this line, I thought the president was saying that
Iraq was competing with Iran for a nuclear weapon (in which case,
obviously, competing pretty poorly). But reading more closely, I
realized that what he was saying that was that if Saddam were still in
power now — with the Iranian nuclear issue heating up — that now
Saddam could be making things even more complicated by himself getting
back into the nuclear game.