David Kay Accidentally Explains War

Here's something David Kay just said about the new WMD report:

"Look, Saddam was delusional. He had a lot of intent. He wanted to be Saladin the Great, of the Middle East yet again. He wanted to put Iraq in a preeminent position to remove the US from the region."

As I pointed out recently, this perspective actually is gravely undermined by the new report itself. But that aside, this statement is quite revealing. Kay has expressed perfectly the worldview of the US foreign policy elite.

That view is this: we're going to run the middle east. Period. That's what drives US policy in the region -- not WMD, not human rights abuses, not Islamic fundamentalism, not even Israel.

As the Project for a New American Century famously put it:

The United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security. While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein.

Of course it transcends the issue of Saddam Hussein, just like it transcended the issue of Mosaddeq, Nasser, or Khomeini. Even with them gone, there are 250 million mideasterners who might like some say in their lives. And that must be stopped at all costs.

The funny thing is Kay is surely oblivious to the appalling arrogance of his statement. Maybe he'd understand better if Iraq had just invaded the US and he heard a powerful Iraqi say they had to do it because an American "wanted to remove Iraq from North America." Even if the American were a tyrant, that statement might rub Kay the wrong way. Kay might even think: uh, dude, Iraq isn't in North America. It's, like, 6000 miles away.