Sometimes one gets no satisfaction whatsoever from being right

[womzilla]

I have been re-reading my Usenet posts from 1999-2003 recently (it's an odd hobby, but it brings me comfort), and I came across this from 3 November 2002:

If the administration has no idea what to do after invading Iraq, they shouldn't be invading Iraq. I believe that the administration knows exactly what to do after invading Iraq; in fact, I am sure that the administration has at least fifteen mutually incompatible plans for what to do after invading Iraq, and will proceed according to at least ten of them.

I didn't actually guess the worst--I had no idea exactly how bad the Iraq occupation would be. The best I can say is that at least my nightmare scenario has not yet come true:

It is not difficult at all to imagine a worse scenario than Saddam Hussein or his sons controlling some nuclear weapons. Here's one: The US invades Iraq, leading to a radical political whiplash throughout Western and Southern Asia, which leads to real revolutionary nutcases getting ahold of Pakistan's nuclear weapons and using them.

Comments

[richardthe23rd.livejournal.com]

Since Pakistan already leaked nuclear technology to North Korea with no apparent ill effect, this premise seems doubtful.

[davidgoldfarb.livejournal.com]

Well, as Kevin said, "...and using them." North Korea has not used nuclear weapons; there's even some doubt about whether they really have them. I was thinking of people like, you know, Al-Qaeda.