Iraq: Unlike any Other

A favorite conceit of the Iraq war critics and HBI (Hate Bush International) is this: "If you believe Iraq was justified then you'd better invade Iran, Syria, N. Korea." 1) Have any of those countries invaded multiple neighbors? No. Has any one of them invaded even a single neighbor in recent history? No. 2) Have any of them both possessed WMD and demonstrated a willingness to use them on their neighbors? No. 3) Have any of them ever attempted an assasination of an American head of state? No. 4) Does any of them have a proven 30-year track record of systematic state-sponsored torture of the most cruel and arbitrary sort? Nothing like in Iraq. 5) Had any of them openly paid off the families of Palestinian suicide bombings thus subsidizing the murder of Israeli innocents? No. So what does this teach us? That Iraq was a totally singular case with a dictator who demonstrated long patterns of irrational decision-making, an obvious determination to possess and use WMD, and a pathological obsession with bringing down the U.S.