Are you ready for a war?

The other day someone asked me what I thought about a possible armed conflict with Iraq. Like my coworker, I don’t really know what to think. What bothers me is, why is this suddenly so important now? As I understand it, the arguments being used for going to war have been valid for five or six years. You might say it’s different now with a new administration. In other words, it was important five years ago, but the last president was a “dove.” But if that’s so, why wasn’t it an issue in the campaign or a priority immediately after the new president took office? You could say that things changed after last September, but I haven’t heard the administration make a case for tying the two together. So if there is no real tie between the two, and there are no new reasons for doing it, I ask you again: why now? Give me a reason, any good reason and I’ll feel better about it. No one I’ve heard who has some knowledge of the situation, other than spokespersons for the current administration, seem to feel that it is critical that we invade now. So why now?