tell me if we should stop with Iraq

One could argue that Iraq would be sufficient to show dictators the error of their ways. For a positive example, see the way that Ghadaffi has recently opened his weapons programmes.

Personally, I'd argue that this is a crock of [censored] and that, by invading a country that turns out not to have nuclear weapons while ignoring those that have themselves declared a nuclear weapons programme, you're just encouraging nuclear proliferation for self-defense. Hell, if I was a tinpot third-world dictator, I'd seriously be thinking about getting some right now.

Of course, this gets us back to the WMD issue, rather than the human rights issues. And as we all know, the war in Iraq is about human rights and democracy this week.

I'd still contend that invading Iraq sends completely the wrong message to those other dictators abusing human rights. In short, even if we accept the premise that invading Iraq was a good thing -- pour encourager les autres -- the mixed messages coming from the Bush administration don't actually tell "les autres" what they're being "encourager"-ed to do. Stop smoking in public places, maybe?