With my recent attempt at becoming a pundit on Radio 4 I have been giving the current situation with Iraq some careful consideration and although the radio debate was an attempt to help those of us who were undecided I still find my self sitting on the fence. Those of you who know me will be aware that ‘fence sitting’ is not something I normally do. The problem for me is that the arguments about Iraq are not as binary as they seem, both sides position’s having merit but are riddled with inconsistencies and not a little bit of hubris. So indulge me as I look at both sides of the argument to see if can make the situation a little less confusing or possibly not as the case may be. The Doves The basis of the Dove’s argument is that war is a bad thing and in one stroke appear to win the argument; they also suggest that any attack on Iraq will play into the hands of the extremists and plunge the whole of the Middle East into conflict. Whilst everyone agrees with the first point I’m not so sure about the second. Also if marching into Iraq is a ‘no no’ what they don’t do is tell us is how we deal with Mr Hussain and his odious regime or whether we should deal with him at all, as sanctions have proved ineffective and the Iraqi regime continues to thumb its nose at the UN. Containment or a second resolution are unlikely to be quick enough for the thousands of Iraqis he and his cronies continue to torture, gas and murder. In addition the Anti War movement have to be very careful about whom it chooses as allies as two of its main proponents, The Socialist Workers Party and The British Association of Muslims make strange bedfellows. The first has an obvious political agenda and the latter, as Nick Cohen in The Observer points out, have circulated a newsletter that suggests that apostasy from Islam is ‘punishable by death’, not I suggest a view held by many of the marchers last weekend. One also has to wonder how many peoples view of the Iraqi conflict are coloured by their view of the Americans, which brings me neatly to... The Hawks The basis of the Hawk’s argument is that Sadam Hussain is a despot who not only threatens his own people but everyone else by supporting terrorist groups and possessing weapons of mass destruction. However this raises the important question of why Iraq and why now? The link between Al-Qaeda is unproven and although the Iraqis once had such weapons the inspectors have found no evidence they still do. OK they may just have hidden them away but if you want to send 120,000 troops into Iraqi you better be pretty sure you know where they are. Also what about handful of other countries who are probably a bigger threat to world stability like North Korea or those with have just as bad if not worse human right records like Saudi Arabia? Or even those still in breach of UN resolutions like Israel? No one seems to trust the Americans to ‘do the right thing’, after all their record in regards to Iraqi is not good, first funding Sadam Hussain when Iran was seen as the Middle East’s pariah them abandoning the fledgling democratic movement to their fate after the Gulf War. Then of course there’s the oil.