The argument that is most often brought up to me in favor of the Iraq War, or to put the circumstances more exactly, in challenge to criticism of the war, is essentially Saddam as Hitler/Saddam as supervillain. The man and his regime are irredeemably bad, so therefore taking him out, by any means, must be good. This is a hard argument to counter, and a great example of the way that the Shrubbers have been able to create situations and frame agendas where political debate is almost impossible. 

The tendency of the argument is extremely dangerous in the way it potentially authorizes any action, no matter how high the human, financial, or political cost. It is especially dangerous when it is used so flexibly as to collapse the vast differences in the cases of early 21st century Iraq and 1930s Nazi Germany in terms of the threat they posed to the world. The former was prospective and theoretical, the latter real and growing. But let's accept the Iraq evil/war good argument for a second because, as Tom Paine said of King George, Saddam really does crawl through the world like a worm, and I will be glad to see him overthrown.

As this argument has been presented to me, and the American public, and (apparently) the soldiers who talk to reporters, it applies only to this particular regime and justifies only this particular war. The problem is, this one war is not all the administration is planning. Now that the troops are in Baghdad, it is clearer than ever that this just the beginning of former CIA director James Woolsey approvingly calls a "fourth world war" that will involve the military defeat or forcible cowing of any other country (especially in the Middle East) that might be hostile to us. Syria will be next, and even old allies like Egypt and Saudi Arabia are the list. I don't that most of the ex-liberals and middle Americans who have reluctantly embraced this war know what they have signed on for: a generation or more of serial wars, interventions, and occupations. 

Let me be clear. This is not just me spinning overheated scenarios out of political hostility. Just a couple of posts ago, I was still hoping that an expansion of the war to other Middle Eastern targets was a neocon wet dream that cooler heads would prevent. Unfortunately, a New York Times piece today, "Viewing the War as a Lesson to the World," makes it perfectly clear that the Commander in Chief is not one of those cooler heads:

Shortly after Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld issued a stark warning to Iran and Syria last week, declaring that any "hostile acts" they committed on behalf of Iraq might prompt severe consequences, one of President Bush's closest aides stepped into the Oval Office to warn him that his unpredictable defense secretary had just raised the specter of a broader confrontation.

Mr. Bush smiled a moment at the latest example of Mr. Rumsfeld's brazenness, recalled the aide. Then he said one word — "Good" — and went back to work.

Whether because he has been convinced by the neocons or just assumes that any Arab or Islamic government were de facto accomplices in 9-11, Shrub is obviously down with the belligerence and aggressiveness of the Pentagon chickenhawks. For a look at just how sweeping the neocon foreign policy intellectuals' plans are -- they explicitly see this as the beginning of new global struggle like their late lamented Cold War (only without the superpowered opponent to prevent us from threatening or using force as often as we wish), see Joshua Micah Marshall's  persuasive new Washington Monthly article.