(Originally posted to Iraq at EraBlog on Tue, 18 Mar 2003 06:41:46 GMT)

Almost, but not quite, at war with Iraq. Saddam has forty-eight hours to quit Iraq and avert war, but no-one expects him to do that. Feh.

I would feel slightly better about the new war if Bush had managed to forge a broad-based coalition. Instead, in their heavyhanded way, Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney, and Perle have managed to piss off most of the world.

Paul Glastris has a good article in Slate about how Bush repeatedly botched the opportunities to get the UN and NATO on board, in contrast with Clinton in Kosovo and his own father for the first Gulf War.