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Stardate 20011214.0934 (On Screen): Well, we have ourselves a nice little cross-blog discussion going. Thomas responds generates the third message in that discussion (and provides links to the earlier ones). In his post, he says:

But the immediate reason we fought Nazi Germany was that Hitler (somewhat inexplicably) declared war on us, not the other way around. Even if Hitler hadn't declared war on us, he was already at war with a key ally, England, so we'd have had sensible grounds to intervene. So I concede that if Iraq declares war on us, or if it attacks England or some other ally, we should bust them up. But obviously, that's quite different from a pre-emptive attack or a declaration of war by the U.S. on Iraq.

It's true that in the days following the Pearl Harbor attack that Hitler declared war on the US (and Mussolini then followed suit). The reason for that is historically interesting: he was conned by the Japanese ambassador, who had implied that if Hitler decalred war on the US that Japan might in turn declare war on the USSR and attack in Siberia, thus taking heat off the Germans on the Russian front. Japan never did so, of course.

But that was simply a convenient excuse for Roosevelt; Hitler's declaration solved a problem by giving him a political excuse. However, months before that Roosevelt and Churchill had been meeting and talking by radio about what would happen if the US did finally enter the war, and it had already been decided to adopt a "Germany first" strategy. So even if Hitler had not declared war on the US, Roosevelt would have found some other excuse for doing so. (The fact that the US Navy had been involved in action against German U-boats for a year and a half and that two US destroyers had been sunk probably would have done as well as any other excuse.)

While England was a friend, it wasn't really an "ally" as such. There was no mutual defense pact, for instance, and on the contrary by US law the US had to maintain strict neutrality for the early stages of the war. (Roosevelt finally got that turned around.) It was more the case that Roosevelt and Churchill were friends than that there was any kind of alliance. So the fact that Germany was engaged in war with the UK wasn't a sufficient political excuse to justify a war. The reason for the US going to war against Germany would be only because Germany was dangerous to the US -- which it was, in spades.

And by the same token, if we end up at war with Iraq it will be because Iraq is perceived as being dangerous to US interests; no other reason will be needed. It will be necessary to establish the danger to avoid being seen as a bully, but there will be no need to establish linkage to the September attacks. (discuss)