Stephen Colbert's TV character, "Stephen Colbert" sometimes rants at guests to demand a response to whether they would want Saddam Hussein still in power in Iraq, "'Yes' or 'No'! 'Yes' or 'No!"

            For such a Scantron "True/False," "Yes/"No" kind of question, I think my relatively brief response would be, "As a practical matter, for the Iraqis, 'No'; they're better off without Saddam. In terms of a 'clash of civilizations' that could go nuclear, we Americans would be better off if we never invaded Iraq."

            On 6 August 1990, four days after Iraq invaded Kuwait, the United Nations Security Council imposed very strict economic sanctions on Iraq, sanctions that lasted until May 2003 — until after Saddam Hussein was ousted from power — and which, it is arguable, could have been removed only by that ouster.

            "Estimates of excess civilian deaths during the sanctions vary widely, but range from 170,000 to over 1.5 million." That includes an estimate by UNICEF of 500,000 children from sanctions and "collateral effects" of the Gulf War. 

            The US invasion of Iraq was horrible for Iraqis; but if — and maybe only if — the alternative was indefinite continuation of deadly sanctions, then the invasion was the lesser horror.

            On the other hand, the invasion of Iraq weakened the US in terms of lives, money, reputation, and morale; it removed a secular government, opposed to Iran, that brutally kept religious and ethnic conflict in check, but did keep them in check. An Iraq moving toward religious and ethnic conflict, an Iraq closely allied to Iran, is not good for the US, or, probably, for most everyone else.

            Perhaps more important, the invasion of Iraq helped drive home a lesson from the First Gulf War. Soviet troops invade various parts of the Soviet Empire, or Chinese troops occupy Tibet, and the US views such nastiness with alarm and sends very angry notes and maybe (with Afghanistan) stops an oil pipeline. Iraq invades Kuwait, and the US puts together a coalition and invades Iraq.

            There are many, many differences here — e.g., no oil in Tibet, many Chinese, huge logistical problems getting to Tibet — but most of these are beyond the control of any government. One difference, though, can be changed.

            The Russians and Chinese had nuclear weapons; Saddam Hussein did not. A lesson learned by at least one vertex of what I'll rename "The Triangle of Evil" is that if you want to avoid getting invaded by the United States, get at least a couple of atomic weapons.

            For the Second Gulf War, Saddam took the gamble of hinting he had an atomic-bomb program but not actually getting a bomb.

            Lesson to be learned: If you want to oppose the USA — or have effective independence — get nuclear capability, quietly. (Or relatively quietly: the Israeli approach probably works better than that of North Korea.)

            This is an unfortunate lesson at the best of times. Add to it nowadays the belief out there that clashes of various cultures are inevitable among True Believers in the correct tradition of Islam — true inhabitants of The House of Peace — and their local opponents, and then finally, against crusading Christians and Jews, and corrupting secularists of the House of War.

            And vice-versa, and with twists and turns. The literal Crusades were a Christian idea, and "Zealot" is a word from Jewish history: "Onward Christian soldiers, / Marching" to Iraq was not useful for peace in a world moving toward armed camps with nuclear weapons in the hands of True Believing fundamentalists of the world's major monotheisms, plus even Hindus and whatever we might call the ideology of the ruling elite in North Korea.

            Stephen Colbert's "Stephen Colbert" rejects such balancing; I'd argue that real moral clarity requires a close look at the grim realities of "excess deaths" behind sanctions and "containment" policies, and at potential threats to children and the human species from people clear on their morality to a fault — and armed with nukes.