Actually, Al, he hasn't

Another country heard from, this time the People's Republic of Gorestan. Mr. Gore, still pondering how he could have lost to a beer-swilling, bubble-headed frat boy whose dad got him where he is today (oh - Senator Albert Gore, Sr.? ...hmmm, best drop the ol' silver spoon attack). In the midst of this pondering, Al weighs in with these muddled opinions, reported in today's Washington Post:

• the President "beat the war drums" against Iraq to win the mid-term elections
  
• Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda terrorist network pose a greater immediate danger than does Iraqi President Saddam Hussein
  
• Bush's decision to shift attention to possible war with Iraq, he said, represented "an historic mistake" that has left Afghanistan facing chaos and U.S. intelligence agencies without some of the resources needed to carry out the war against terrorism.

Wow. Hard to know where to begin. Well, let's start with the basics. The war on terror includes eliminating Saddam Hussein's evil regime and its weapons of mass destruction. The fight against the al Qaeda scum is but one element of the war against terror. As for "immediate" danger, it is true that al Qaeda poses a greater imminent threat, but imagine the threat potential once (not if, but when) Saddam provides al Qaeda with WMD capabilities.

A second but not secondary point is that use of overwhelming force to eliminate Iraq as a threat will send a clear message that we've still got a dog in this fight; Afghanistan was but the first. As for Afghanistan "facing chaos", this is just Big Al's heart bleeding because we don't have sufficient resources for "nation building" in that part of the world, at least not to Al's satisfaction. I don't know if the average Afghani is better off today than under the Taliban; I'd like to think that they are. But, more importantly, we are better off, since Afghanistan no longer poses a significant risk to us by harboring terrorists.

Finally, the charge, common to the leftocrats that the President "beat the war drums" for political purposes, is beneath even Mr. Gore. That beating of war drums, which was actually rather muted from this neocon's perspective, was and remains the right thing, regardless of politics. My concern remains that the President's rhetoric may exceed his will to act when (again, not if) it becomes clear that Saddam will not willingly play nice with the willfully blind Hans Blix et. cie.

December 8, 2002, looms as a credibility check on American intentions to disarm Iraq. In the meantime, to Big Al Gore: Run, Al, run on an anti-war platform. Give Dubya a walk to his second term.