Cathy Young: Reflecting on the Iraq War
[Cathy Young writes a weekly column for RealClearPolitics and is also a contributing editor at Reason magazine. She blogs at cathyyoung.wordpress.com. This article originally appeared at RealClearPolitics.]
As the United States' combat mission in Iraq draws to a close, it is fitting to look back on the war and its legacy so far. In most left-of-center commentary, the folly and criminality of the war in Iraq is now an article of faith, and anyone who ever supported it has a black mark against him. Yet, as someone ambivalently pro-war in 2003, I remain unrepentantly ambivalent and far from certain about history's eventual verdict. Ironically, President Obama's August 31 Oval Office speech marking the war's official end reflects nothing if not ambivalence, Obama's early anti-war stance notwithstanding.
Some facts are undeniable: the weapons of mass destruction of which Saddam Hussein's alleged possession was the ostensible reason for the invasion never turned up. It is also fairly clear that, in the buildup to the war, the Bush White House disregarded evidence that did not fit its casus belli—though it is a far cry from that to the charge that Bush deliberately "lied," and the belief that the Saddam Hussein regime was hiding WMDs was widely shared among Democrats....
But what if we had not gone to war? David Frum, a former speechwriter for George W. Bush, argues in a recent column in The National Post, a Canadian daily, that a Saddam Hussein regime left intact in 2003 would have become far more dangerous due to new wealth from rising oil prices and the probable collapse of sanctions—and would have eventually ended in a violent downfall with massive casualties from sectarian battles....
Read entire article at Reason
As the United States' combat mission in Iraq draws to a close, it is fitting to look back on the war and its legacy so far. In most left-of-center commentary, the folly and criminality of the war in Iraq is now an article of faith, and anyone who ever supported it has a black mark against him. Yet, as someone ambivalently pro-war in 2003, I remain unrepentantly ambivalent and far from certain about history's eventual verdict. Ironically, President Obama's August 31 Oval Office speech marking the war's official end reflects nothing if not ambivalence, Obama's early anti-war stance notwithstanding.
Some facts are undeniable: the weapons of mass destruction of which Saddam Hussein's alleged possession was the ostensible reason for the invasion never turned up. It is also fairly clear that, in the buildup to the war, the Bush White House disregarded evidence that did not fit its casus belli—though it is a far cry from that to the charge that Bush deliberately "lied," and the belief that the Saddam Hussein regime was hiding WMDs was widely shared among Democrats....
But what if we had not gone to war? David Frum, a former speechwriter for George W. Bush, argues in a recent column in The National Post, a Canadian daily, that a Saddam Hussein regime left intact in 2003 would have become far more dangerous due to new wealth from rising oil prices and the probable collapse of sanctions—and would have eventually ended in a violent downfall with massive casualties from sectarian battles....