Time for War, Right?

Brian Doherty | February 13, 2003

This piece from Pacific News Service takes a reasonably well-informed look at divisions on the war question in what is traditionally thought of as the "right," for what such terms are worth. An excerpt:
"Realists" like Brent Scowcroft, former national security adviser to the first President Bush, Lawrence Eagleburger, former secretary of state, and business leaders who ran "A Republican Dissent on Iraq" in the Wall Street Journal this January, drew attention with their warning that a hasty war could set the entire region on fire. Less well known are objections from conservatives driven by a strict reading of the Constitution and distaste for the "welfare-warfare state."

"Opposition to an unjust war is a conservative tradition," insists Jon B. Utley, the Robert A. Taft fellow at the Ludwig von Mises Institute in Auburn, Ala. "War of conquest encourages the growth of state power and burdensome taxation." With war in Iraq, Utley fears that America is forging a world alliance against itself. "We'll all be soft targets."