I caught a replay of a Christopher Hitchens interview on C-Span last night that was pretty interesting. Hitchens, a columnist for Vanity Fair and previously The Nation, said that we didn't invade and topple so much as we swept in before the collapse.
Basically, if I got what he was saying, it was that Saddam's government wasn't just a rogue regime but a failed regime. The timing of our, the US's, invasion was prompted less by the WMD threat than the realization that Saddam's regime was going to collapse in the very near future anyhow. By getting in while Saddam was still on the throne, we had a chance to whisk the country away from the radical Muslim movement and the influences of Iran.
He made a pretty good case for the Iraqi citizen's militia (I'm sorry for the spelling here), the Feydahin (?) actually mustering for an eventual coup. Although organized by Saddam and led by his son, Hitchens said that the radical Muslim sects were more in control of this armed group than the Husseins. In his opinion, they were poised for a takeover.
Has anyone else heard this or evidence to support his hypothesis? He made a good case for it, but I'm not terribly familiar with the man. He struck me as a gritty William F. Buckley whose speaking style adds a gravitas that may reinforce his argument more than the facts would bear out.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Hitchens keeps looking for something that'll stick so he won't feel so bad about backing that horse.