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I would like to see a conservative deal in which war with Iraq is traded for withdrawal of U.S. forces from some of the dozens of countries we protect.

I do agree with you that it is time for most of our troops to come home from many countries, but President Bush made his case for stopping Saddam and I happen to agree with him for many reasons which go far beyond what we are seeing in the press. Long term world peace and stability will be served best by getting rid of these wildcards one at a time.

For now, it is time to rally behind our elected leaders who have a larger vision for the future and have selected Saddam as the next domino. Had the last administration stood up to Saddam in 1998 with the same backbone that Bush has displayed, there probably wouldn't have been near as many terrorists thinking that the USA is tired of the fight.

I say finish him off now before he DOES force us into WWIII later. Weakness in the face of organized crime only leads to more organized crime with better weapons.

We definitely need to rally behind our leaders, that's for sure. Before that can happen we need a clear connection to 9/11 or an imminent threat, and a realistic occupation plan. In Afghanistan we had the connection and a plan (abbreviated because of the urgency of the situation).

We should also note that our non-war efforts to stop terrorism have been 100% successful AFAIK. The 9/11 failure turned into a massive wakeup call for the agencies which is a clear positive alternative to war.

But I don't believe that terrorists will be impressed by an attack on Iraq. Iraq is weaker since we beat them the last time so we aren't proving anything by attacking. If anything, terrorists will be looking to see if the majority of Iraqis cooperate with the occupation and we are able to effectively suppress internal attacks. That is difficult but would probably gain us some respect.