Financial Review - On the prospect of war

Many international problems offer only the bleak choice between a bad and a less bad solution, and the controversy over Iraq poses this dilemma in an unusually far-reaching and complex way. It is not simply a question of dealing with a particularly obnoxious and aggressive tyrant, who may or may not be close to obtaining nuclear weapons. Other vital questions have also to be considered - the risks to the world's most important source of oil and therefore to the world economy; the already unstable political situation of the Middle East, which has been shaken especially by the violent and emotive struggle between Israel and the Palestinians; the possibility that an American invasion of Iraq might bring down some of the less stable governments in the region; the emerging hostility between parts of the Islamic world and the West; the effect of an invasion of Iraq on international solidarity in the "war on terrorism"; and worldwide unease at the idea of an aggressive and unilateral US hegemony, as foreshadowed in the new doctrine of American pre-emptive action and in documents such as the recently published National Security Strategy of the United States of America.

This is primarily a review of Kenneth Pollack's The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq. Note that Pollack is less certain than his title appears and he believes invading Iraq without taking care of al-Queda first is a mistake. He also feels an invasion by the US and Britain alone could have disasterous consequences.