Doug Bandow argues against going after Saddam. I disagree.

As with all such arguments, his premise is that Saddam is deterred by our military might. " Would Baghdad give nuclear weapons to terrorists?" Bandow asks rhetorically. I have to answer, "Yes, if he thought he could get away with it." You could have asked, prior to 1990, "Would Saddam invade Kuwait and Saudi Arabia?"

The point is that Saddam is unpredictable. Applying logic to him is futile. Would he use nukes against Israel to make himself the greatest hero in Islam? He might.

Secondly, this argument depends on his being convinced that we would level Baghdad if he attacked us or our allies with weapons of mass destruction. I'm not so sure we would. Our reaction to Al Qaeda, after all, has been pretty tepid. We bombed Afghanistan, but did so under constant criticism from the left for killing innocents. What would the NYTimes, the WaPo and the rest say if we were contemplating the annilation of Baghdad? I would hope that we'd retaliate without submitting it to the U.N. security council first, but that is not a sure thing any more.

The reason for going after Saddam is that we don't know what he'll do. We have pretty good guesses about the rest of the Axis of Evil, but Saddam is a loose cannon on a deck loaded with explosives. We've got to tie it down. Now.