David Frum

I didn't go to the UN.

Again, there's not a lot of Iraq war nostalgia out there.

But I just want to remind people, President Bush in 2003 got authorization from Congress.

And he had a whole series of UN Security Council resolutions against Iraq.

And he went back to the UN to try to get another one.

He failed.

But there are abundant resolutions before then authorizing the United States and allies to enforce no nuclear weapons in Iraq.

He put together some kind of political consensus and he had public approval on his side for a while.

Then the war went wrong and the WMD, we don't, everyone knows the story.

And again, I don't cite this as, you know, here's a great success story, but just here is some show of institutional respect to the way war is fought in the United States.

And let's say the operation does go well, because I'm sure, like the Navy with the Strait of Hormuz, the Marines have been thinking about Karg Island nonstop, again, for 50 years.

Sure.

And they've probably been training for it, and they're the Marines.

So let's say it goes well.

Now what?

Because the real ground troop question is going to be, suppose you, as the Israelis seem intent on doing, do collapse this hateful regime.

which is doing additional hateful acts by the day, murdering teenage girls or hanging high school athletes.

And it's hateful.

And the Israelis are like the hand of God striking down the judges who hand down those sentences.

So let's say the regime does collapse.