[Burkeman1]

If history is any indicator this is wishful thinking. Stalin went into hiding during the first weeks of the war when Hitler invaded. He reportedly got drunk and hung out at his villa. When his cronies came to his Dacha to fetch him- he was expecting to be arressted and killed. He wasn't.

In such terror regimes all of the little Stalin's and Sadaam's depend on the heirarchy for survival. There was fierce loyalty to Stalin among his apparatchiks not because they loved him (they hated him) but because they would be dead without him. That is the same with the regime Sadaam has (and by many accounts he actually modeled his terror regime on a study of Stalin's tactics.) That this was not known to our fancy boy neocons when calling for this war is less than heartening.

[=Intervention=]

Unfounded assumption #1: "Our fancy boy neocons" did not know this.

Unfounded assumption #2: OFBN = people in power (U.S.)

Two strikes. You're certainly down in the count.

-=I=-

[TheLion]

"That this was not known to our fancy boy neocons when calling for this war is less than heartening."

They know that his military uses Russian tactics. Hard to believe they wouldn't know this.