"You might prefer to believe [an alternative history] in which the failure to attack Iraq produces the most benign consequences: perhaps Saddam really gives up his lifelong ambition to be the new Saladin; perhaps Iran meekly agrees under little pressure from the West to end its nuclear programmes; perhaps the tightening repression of the ever—more—restless peoples of the Middle East produces a real peace and stability.... The consequences of what was done in Iraq are easy to see and hard to look at. The consequences of what might have been are by their nature unrecordable. But we know that history's greatest tragedies could and should have been avoided, but never were" —— Times of London columnist Gerard Baker.

Ed Lasky 3 17 06