[link|http://www.dailystar.com.lb/opinion/03_09_03_c.asp|Everything's America's fault, no matter whose fault it is]

Excerpt:

Ultimately, it is still too early to assign precise blame for Iraq\ufffds humanitarian catastrophe between the two Gulf wars. Certainly, the effects of sanctions could have easily been avoided had Saddam complied with UN resolutions by more readily paying reparations to Kuwait, as well as disarming and discontinuing weapons programs (he even rejected the oil-for-food offer for nearly two years), and allowing UN inspectors to verify this. What\ufffds clear is that the Iraqi dictator recognized sanctions as one of his only effective propaganda tools, which gave him material incentive to exaggerate and worsen their impact.
Which is an excellent reason to question their continued infliction upon countries such as Cuba, Libya and Myanmar. With the very notable exception of South Africa, the sanction tool\ufffds track record in changing dictatorial behavior (or triggering regime change, which is often the real motivation) has been poor. Surely there must be some option between all-out war and a slap on the wrist, preferably one that doesn\ufffdt contribute to thousands of needless deaths.

I say:

Bag the wishful thinking. There does NOT surely have to be a third option. And what's this [link|http://www.angelfire.com/ca3/marlowe/iraq.html#bodycount|"thousands of needless deaths"] crap? Ieven if it turns out there were thousands, they were clearly NOT needless.

And by the way, sanctions don't work at least in part because of [link|http://www.mips1.net/mgan.nsf/UNID/TWOD-5M2LQG|who's in charge of them]. If there's another option, it might be doing sanctions *without* letting the United Nations have anything to do with them. But that's a big if.