The Spectator

THE CASE FOR ACTION

International stability is served not by being tough on asylum-seekers but by being tough on the causes of asylum-seekers

issue 01 February 2003

There are some for whom George W. Bush – or any other Republican president, for that matter – will always be a gun-slinging cowboy bursting through the swing doors of some saloon and firing off for the hell of it. For them, the American President is an irredeemable warmonger intent on attacking Saddam with the flimsiest excuse; either because he wants to get his hands on Iraq’s oil, or because he sees in Saddam an enemy-by-proxy for bin Laden, the one that got away, or because he wants to avenge his Dad.

It is becoming increasingly difficult to sustain views of this kind. It is over a year now since war against Iraq was first mooted, and still hostilities have yet to commence. So far, President Bush has been through all the political hoops which sceptics of war could have expected of him: he has obtained a UN resolution, built an international coalition and waited for the UN’s weapons inspector, Hans Blix, to report.

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