Nikos Tsfos’s article about war on Iraq was very well worded but the arguments present in it were very limited in scope. After reading the entire matter I felt Nikos was presenting a tunnel vision argument. Its important to realize that any argument has 2 sides as even the mirror has two faces. Iraq is a country of its own. In the old times, in the days of the Raj (British conquests), maybe the argument for getting to oil and thinking of war to get other countries resources justified. But in this day and age it is hardly reasonable to attack a county and kill thousands of its soldiers and innocent civilians to get to its resources. After all then what is the point of international platforms and borders if a strong country is going to go into some other state on its will. It was many times repeated that Iraq had a lengthy war with Iran and it is a well known fact that the United States helped Iraq in the war against Iran and also helped Iraq acquire some of its weapons, the same way as it gave the mhujahideen the rocket launchers. As the rocket launchers later became anti West, it seems the same happened in Iraq. Even with that in mind there is no logic to attack an independent nation. Following this argument of first strike would it be ok for India to attack Pakistan claiming there was cross border terrorism? With both countries nuclear, what would that decision lead to. As the most powerful county in the world the US has great responsibility to lead by action and an act of war in the middle east will not be the best example for the rest of the world. How many more innocent people have to die before it is realized that country A cannot go into country B without any logical reason. There are many more options which have not been exhausted yet and the first in line is the UN option and after that are an international force, middle eastern force, defenses around Iraq. If we see the pattern of war and its result in the last century we will see that the best option has always been avoiding regional war therefore blocking way to a global war. There is much more to say but I will reserve all that for a future letter. Sarmad Palijo CAS 04