I generally stay away from the Iraq war issue because I'll be honest and say up front my position is not "well formed." But I'll give a shot at explaining it.

First, I think Iraq is not a better place now than it was before the war, but I think it will become a much better place within the next several years. I find it hard to believe that these people will reject democracy. I think if we can succesfully aid in the supression of any attempted "military coup"-like uprisings in the years to come, the situation will resolve itself well. Similarly, I think the US is not significantly safer now than it was, but there is the potential for it to become so in the next several years assuming a democratic Iraq is succesfull. *To me* the facts are:

1) The world as a whole does not agree that we made the right descision. Whether or not this matters is subjective.

2) If we can succesfully establish a stable democratic government in Iraq, nobody will debate the "correctness" of our actions ten years from now. (This includes France and Russia, but not North Korea...)

3) Either president, Kerry or Bush, will handle the next four years of presidency well with respect to the situation in Iraq. They will do it quite differently however with respect to foreign policy.

3a) Bush will continue to "penalize" countries that opposed the war by trying to block them out of potential commercial endeavors in Iraq as long as it is within his power to do so (or whatever other methods he can utilize to this end.) His thinking is, if you're not with us in the war on terror, then you're against us. To Bush the world is much more black and white than to Kerry. This may result in greater US benefit by way of stronger US ties in the democratic Iraq down the road a ways. In the short term it will be a continued strain on foreign relations, "world US image", as well as financially. (Although the resulting tax burden on US citizens will be significantly less than the tax burden on Greeks from hosting the Olympics...)

3b) Kerry will loosen up this policy and let in aid wherever offered. He'll do this to lighten the US load in Iraq, even if it means giving up potentially lucrative contracts to countries initially opposed to the war. This will result in a less significant US handhold in a democratic Iraq down the road, but will more immediately improve foreign relations and lighten the US financial load. I also think that "the world" has a bad enough view of Bush that "world US image" will immediately increase simply by Kerry being elected.

So then I have to ask myself, which of these two policies is right? Honestly I don't think I am qualified to decide. To me, this election is *NOT* really about the situation in Iraq, or about the war on terror. I firmly believe that both candidates are capable of handling that situation well. Nobody, democrat or republican, is going to say "Gee, they (terrorists) showed that they are willing to indiscriminantly kill thousands of people, but we shouldn't go after them by whatever means necessary because the world might not agree." To me this election is about domestic policy issues, and I know very clearly where my vote lies on those issues.

[black]-"The further we go and older we grow, the more we know, the less we show."[/black]