Politics & Power Quote by Ariel Sharon

“Successful” does a lot of covert work here. Sharon isn’t simply describing a policy preference; he’s setting a standard of proof that turns war into a demonstration project. Iraq becomes less a country than a showroom: if the U.S. can topple a regime and rewrite the security landscape there, the argument goes, other targets will fall into line. That’s the intent - to bind American power to a regional agenda by framing Iraq as the opening act, not the main event.

The rhetoric leans on a familiar post-9/11 moral taxonomy: “irresponsible states” as a category that pre-judges sovereignty. It’s not “adversaries” or “rivals” but children-with-grenades, a phrase that implies paternal necessity and shrinks diplomacy into indulgence. “Must be disarmed” converts a contested goal into a foregone conclusion, smuggling compulsion into grammar. The subtext is deterrence-by-example: you don’t need inspections if you have fear, and you don’t need coalitions if you have momentum.

Context matters: Sharon’s tenure sits inside the Second Intifada, a collapsing peace process, and a U.S. newly inclined to preventive war. Lumping Iran, Libya, and Syria together isn’t analytical; it’s strategic. It urges Washington to keep widening the “WMD” aperture in ways that align with Israel’s security priorities, while also suggesting that American credibility depends on follow-through. The line reads like counsel, but it’s also a wager: that U.S. success in Iraq would normalize regime change as a tool - making coercion easier precisely because the precedent would do the persuading.