Hie On Over
We were right to invade IraqThe failures of occupation may be legion, but at least we confronted Saddam at a time of our choosing
By Oliver Kamm
Tuesday March 14, 2006It is not a vulgar tu quoque to point out that those who supported regime change in Iraq are far from exceptional in having some explaining to do. Mistaken ideas have consequences, even when the inference drawn from them is a counsel of inaction. Had we not overthrown Saddam, Iraq today would be far from tranquil.
Many argue that the absence of WMD shows that western policy had been working. It was in reality unravelling fast, and few opponents of war treated the problem seriously. [All emph. add.]ยท Oliver Kamm is the author of Anti-Totalitarianism: the Left-Wing Case for a Neoconservative Foreign Policy
Go to Think of England, and follow the link from Brit's latest post. The article is short but incisive, and well worth reading in entirety.
posted by Oroborous at 10:05 AM
2 Comments:
There are two points about the war that are often ignored or under-emphasized. For one, we were still technically at war with Iraq since the end of the Gulf war. We only signed a cease-fire, with conditions attached, not a peace treaty.
Two, and the article alludes to this: we went to war because we could not be sure that WMDs were not present in Iraq, and the inspections program could not bring that clarity. The intelligence reports that said that there were no WMDs were only lucky guesses, we could not rely on them to be right. The only way to gain clarity was to invade.
Another interesting point is on the (cowardly) anti-war argument about the invasion 'provoking terrorism'.
As Kamm points out, the alternative - prolonged containment - means troops in Saudi Arabia: the most provocative thing anyway.
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