New at Reason

Julian Sanchez | March 17, 2006

Has anyone changed their mind about the Iraq War over the past three years? Reason surveys libertarian-leaning academics and journalists to find out.

Comments

|3.17.06 @ 4:12PM|#

The war has turned out EXACTLY as I predicted it would from the beginning. No surprises here. I was against it from the beginning, and feel vindicated now. Unfortunately, there is no sweet taste of rightness, just the smell of tragic stupidity.

JMJ

|3.17.06 @ 4:41PM|#

"Exactly," in all caps? Jersey, I am beginning to feel, is a parody. Which is embarassing, after I took him so seriously on the 527 thread.

|3.17.06 @ 4:47PM|#

Charlie don't surf. Do you smell that? It smells like victorious stupidity.

|3.17.06 @ 4:48PM|#

Glenn Reynolds
1. Did you support the invasion of Iraq?
Yes.
2. Have you changed your position?
No. Sanctions were failing and Saddam was a threat, making any other action in the region impossible.
3. What should the U.S. do in Iraq now?
Win.

Can somebody please tell me why people insist on calling Glenn a libertarian? He is nothing better than a neo-con in Harry Browne's clothing.

|3.17.06 @ 4:50PM|#

Excellent idea & format. Thanks for doing this.

My favorite answers came from Jim Henley: "Hayek does not stop at the water's edge. What the hawks proposed to do to Iraq was just the foreign policy version of central planning and likely to work as well." And "There are only bad options and wishful thinking at this point."

Most-disagreed-with were the answers of Louis Rossetto: "Iraq is not the war, it is a battle. The war is The Long War against Islamic fascism." Next stop, Victory Stew.

|3.17.06 @ 4:54PM|#

There is a fabulous article in Foreign Policy this month on Iraq.

It contains this interesting tidbit as part of a very well written and facinating look at what Saddam was really up to or not up to running up to the war.

The Saddam Fedayeen also took part in the regime's domestic terrorism operations and planned for attacks throughout Europe and the Middle East. In a document dated May 1999, Saddam's older son, Uday, ordered preparations for "special operations, assassinations, and bombings, for the centers and traitor symbols in London, Iran and the self-ruled areas [Kurdistan]." Preparations for "Blessed July," a regime-directed wave of "martyrdom" operations against targets in the West, were well under way at the time of the coalition invasion.

Timothy|3.17.06 @ 5:04PM|#

Nice to see that Reynolds responds to interviews like he blogs.

|3.17.06 @ 5:13PM|#

Whatever one might think of the issue at hand, it was a pleasure to read this compilation. Nice job, guys.

However, it was somewhat depressing to see how rarely minds changed in response to events. Yes, I know, everybody (myself included) has a perfectly good reason for sticking to their positions. I'd like to think that my reasons are valid. But when I see how few people are budging, I think we should all ask ourselves whether this is the result of stubbornness more than anything else. I will certainly ask myself that.

It's not that I can point to any particular individual and say that he or she has a bad reason for not changing while everybody else has a good reason. But when such changes are rare, well, it's a sign that at least a few minds are closed, even if we disagree on which minds those are. Sad.

|3.17.06 @ 5:23PM|#

If you look at polling numbers, you'll see than a not insignificant percentage of the population have changed their minds...

R C Dean|3.17.06 @ 5:28PM|#

Can somebody please tell me why people insist on calling Glenn a libertarian?

Because it is quite possible to be a libertarian and support finishing the Iraq war and installing a better government there.

On the very short list of legitimate functions of the state is the defense of its citizens, after all. It is not indefensible to define the defense of the citizenry of the United States to include the neutralization/liquidation of the Islamist terror network(s) that have attacked us here and abroad. Certainly the state sponsors and allies of these networks are legitimate targets.

From here on out, it is a matter of interpretation of evidence (Saddam has extensive ties to terrorist groups and a history of pursuing WMD) and low tolerance for risk to conclude that the logical next move in a defensive war against the Islamists and their state sponsors was to finish off Saddam Hussein.

Believe it or not, it is possible to believe all this, and be a fan of low taxes, drug legalization, Second Amendment rights, limited government as well as an enemy of the nanny/police state. I find the the cognitive dissonance to be quite low, thank you.

|3.17.06 @ 5:28PM|#

What if you supported it, but didn't vote for Bush? Was that not really supporting it? (I didn't vote for Kerry either.)

I admit I supported it, but I was shocked that the invasion started so early. How the hell do you successfully occupy a country of ~20 million with a bit over 100k troops?

I should've known not to support it with Bush at the helm. I'm surprised the man can tie his own shoes.

|3.17.06 @ 5:29PM|#

A few points, thoreau:

1) A goodly number of libertarians were opposed on principle. The principle, in theory, should not change based on the outcome, even if it were great rather than icky.

2) A goodly number of the people who supported did so because of some combination of toppling saddam and gaining certainty about the wmd question. Both of those things happened, so if you had those features as primary objectives, you have to conclude that your primary objectives were met regardless of the rebuilding situation. I put myself in this category.

The people you'd expect to have serious rethinking to do would be those for whom the stable democratic Iraq was the primary motivator for wanting to go.

Joatmoaf|3.17.06 @ 5:31PM|#

1. Did you support the invasion of Iraq?

Absolutely.

2. Have you changed your position?

No.

3. What should the U.S. do in Iraq now?

Let the military, not politicians, fight the war.
Put the boot to the insurgents neck.
Let them know in no uncertain terms that if they are willing to die for allah then we are willing to kill them.

Build up a forward tactical and strategic base of operations in that area because I guarentee we'll need it despite all the good intentions of the Doves and all the Positive Waves in the universe.

The middle east didn't just suddenly become a hot spot when Bush came to office. It's been one for not decades, but centuries and the world has gotten to the stage of civilization were technology is far too destructive to allow a bunch of 7th century warlords any leeway with WMDs.

Anyone who thinks otherwise is living in a fantasy world, not Earth.

|3.17.06 @ 5:32PM|#

Thoreau,

Good point. Part of that is that this is a very complex problem that makes it easy for each side to point to facts that support their arguments. The other part I think is that a large portion of both sides live in denial of inconvienent facts. The anti-war crowd lives in denial of the obvious facts that Saddam was a threat to the region and the United States and the sanctions and containment had broken down. The pro war side lives in denial of the flawed assumption that the war could be won by just taking out Saddam and that this wouldn't be a really bloody and nasty undertaking. Unless you live in Andrew Sullivan land where everything would have been wonderful if the U.S. just hadn't broken up Saddam's army and regime apparatus, an insurgency was pretty much pre-ordaned from the moment the regime fell. The only good news about that is that it is a Suni and foreign insurgency and not a Shia insurgency. A Shia or Kurd uprising would have been the current insurgency times 10 and then some. The war supporters, myself included, totally understimated the complexities of Iraq's culture and just how broken the society was after 40 years of Bathist rule. If there was one thing that surprised me the most about Iraq was the stories people told me about how chaotic the place was under Saddam. Saddam killed and imprisoned with impunity, but the tribes still had a lot of power. So much so that he would play one against another and use rival tribes to kill people he wanted killed sometimes rather than just having his security apparatus do it. Parts of the country were just lawless. Faluja hung its bathist mayer a couple of years before the war. Then leading up to the war, Saddam emptied all of the prisons, which made things even more chaotic. I wish there was more reporting in the media about what things were really like in Iraq before the invasion. It is really fascinating and not what is portrayed at all. I guess reporting that would go against the media mame that Iraq was this well run, albeit oppressive country, before the invasion.

|3.17.06 @ 5:33PM|#

Jason-

But once the outcome becomes "icky", as you describe it, you'd think a few people would ask whether the accomplishment of those objectives was worth an "icky" outcome.

And while some were opposed on principle, not all were. You could argue that the current "icky" outcome isn't nearly as bad as the dire predictions that some opponents made before it started. If those dire predictions were wrong, then those people should rethink matters.

Kevin B. O'Reilly|3.17.06 @ 5:36PM|#

thoreau, I think that the reason why many pro-war folks haven't changed their minds is because they don't ask, "If I knew then what I know now ..." but rather, "Given what I knew then ..." That's how Dubya operates, and the question dictates that the answer will be the same as it was back then.

As for those who were against the war, what reason would they have to now be for it? (That's not a rhetorical question.)

|3.17.06 @ 5:41PM|#

"But once the outcome becomes "icky", as you describe it, you'd think a few people would ask whether the accomplishment of those objectives was worth an "icky" outcome."

That is what I'm getting at, I guess. The principle people aren't ever going to change their minds because they are Right.

The strategic objectives people attained their goals, but at some cost. The change you mind break point would have to be pretty high unless you thought that overall costs would be pretty low. I agree with the point that this is going not much worse than one should have expected. There are a number of ways out and possibilities in the future that would result in a not too bad outcome from my perspective. In short, the costs are unknown, so we don't know if it fails the cost benefit analysis test yet.

|3.17.06 @ 5:41PM|#

Kevin,

I don't answer that question the way you say at all. Given what I know now, I still think invading Iraq was the right thing to do. I would rather be where we are now, then facing both Iran and an Iraq run by Saddam newly freed from sanctions and welcomed back into the international community; something I am convinced would have happened within a year or two had the invasion not occurred.

|3.17.06 @ 6:08PM|#

It's good to see that Hitchens and Young remain the supremely deluded bullshitters I have always believed them to be. The other head-up-their-ass responders really are not serious thinkers worthy of consideration anyway (and yes, that is a backhanded compliment for Hitchens and Young).

|3.17.06 @ 6:17PM|#

Jason,
The people you'd expect to have serious rethinking to do would be those for whom the stable democratic Iraq was the primary motivator for wanting to go.

The problem is, this was one of the primary motivators promoted by the Bush Administration.

From a September 12, 2002 speech to the UN:
"If we meet our responsibilities, if we overcome this danger, we can arrive at a very different future. The people of Iraq can shake off their captivity. They can one day join a democratic Afghanistan and a democratic Palestine, inspiring reforms throughout the Muslim world."

From the March 19, 2003 Bush Address on the invasion:
"My fellow citizens, at this hour, American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger.
...
To all the men and women of the United States Armed Forces now in the Middle East, the peace of a troubled world and the hopes of an oppressed people now depend on you. That trust is well placed.
...
And helping Iraqis achieve a united, stable and free country will require our sustained commitment."

And later from a November 6, 2003 speech:
"Our commitment to democracy is also tested in the Middle East, which is my focus today, and must be a focus of American policy for decades to come. In many nations of the Middle East -- countries of great strategic importance -- democracy has not yet taken root. And the questions arise: Are the peoples of the Middle East somehow beyond the reach of liberty?"

Rick H.|3.17.06 @ 6:39PM|#

Let them know in no uncertain terms that if they are willing to die for allah then we are willing to kill them.

Logic... broken... I had intended to type out some ad absurdum snarky comment in response, but I just couldn't make my brain go any stupider.

|3.17.06 @ 7:39PM|#

I was against the war because it was stupid. Then I was in favor of it because we were already there, might as well win.

Now I don't think we can win, so I figure leave. The only chance we've got is that one side quickly wins the civil war.

|3.17.06 @ 7:50PM|#

The anti-war crowd lives in denial of the obvious facts that Saddam was a threat to the region and the United States and the sanctions and containment had broken down.

While I think there were strong arguments for removing Saddam, there are still plenty of highly informed military and/or foreign policy experts who don't believe that he was a threat to the region or (especially) to the U.S.. That he was falls squarely into the "opinion" category.

Joatmoaf|3.17.06 @ 7:54PM|#

Pardon me, but what does logic have to do with winning a war?

The first 2 questions can be answered with simple Yes or No answers but the third question is broader in scope and in vagueness.

Due to the political correctness and "kids gloves" manner in which the politicians are running this war the insurgents do not know that we are serious about winning it.

Therefore the answer I gave is totally valid if not logical.
If you don't like my answer, tough, but it doesn't in-validate it.

Is the survey supposed to elicit an honest response? Or am I only allowed give a response more in line with your way of thinking?

If that's the case then what's the point?

If you don't like my answer, too bad. Get over it, because it is my answer.

Try to make your brain go stupider and explain to me, what the hell logic has to do with winning a war.

Use actual logic this time OK?

|3.17.06 @ 8:26PM|#

Personally, I knew that it would come to a bad end the moment I heard about "bringing democracy to Irak"

To an amateur historian, this sounds so much like the rethoric of WWI. They were going to destroy those nests of authoritarianism and absolutism: Germany and Austria, free the captive nations, and bring a new dawn of democracy.

They won, they got rid of the Kaiser and the Emperor, and wonder of wonders, even the Czar gave way to a democratic republic...

Then it all went to pieces. As Bertrand Russell said, sardonically, later "You have to believe that Hitler is an improvement over the Kaiser and Stalin an improvement over the Czar to rejoice at the results"

How many times people have to be told that putting up a democracy is the easy part? Making it work is the hard part, and if you do not have its pre-conditions, all you are going to get is a period of chaos, probably civil war, leading up to an authoritarian government of any kind. No exceptions. There was no reason to believe that Bush would be the first one to get it right

|3.17.06 @ 8:59PM|#

Whatever you may think of the war, I have to say that Jim Henley's comment on Hayek rocked.

And Louis Rossetto's comment on "The Long War" is scary shit.

One can support the war in Iraq without subscribing to the notion that the Republic must remain in a state of constant warfare. And one can support the war for the specific, concrete reasons that Jason cited while still acknowledging the dangers of trying to conduct social engineering overseas.

|3.17.06 @ 9:05PM|#

"If I knew then what I know now ..."

There was an old man from Sweden
Who went to Iraq for a reason
To look for some kooks
Who were building up nukes
But when he came back
With all of the facts
No one important believed him.

Rick H.|3.17.06 @ 9:07PM|#

Joatmoaf:

Is the survey supposed to elicit an honest response? Or am I only allowed give a response more in line with your way of thinking?

You're "allowed" to say any crazy thing you desire. I have no special powers in this forum.

explain to me, what the hell logic has to do with winning a war.

Logic is very important.

Some things logic is good for: winning a war, shopping for groceries, driving in heavy traffic, playing chess, setting public policy.
Some activities that logic isn't quite so important for: writing poetry, taking a nap, drinking milkshakes, hopscotch, militaristic cheerleading.

I stand by my initial response. Killing martyrs (you know, the people who want to die) to make some kind of statement of authority is akin to the guy in the joke who confronts his cheating wife by holding a loaded gun to his head and saying, "What are you laughing about? You're next!"

Joatmoaf|3.17.06 @ 10:27PM|#

Logic may be used in planning strategy and tactics in prosecuting a war but when it comes to the actual Boots On Ground mechenics of engaging it, it has little or no place.

First off, killing insurgents is a vital part of winning.
They can call themselves whatever they want but they are still the enemy.

Rather than leave the borders open to everyone who wants to get in on the action, we should lock them down tight.
That way they can't get in to start mischief. Even better, they can't get out when we hunt them down.

It's a fact that forgiveness and tolerance is viewed as a weakness in Muslim societies. Especially the radical ones.

�When one makes concession to one�s enemies, one regrets it afterwards, and the fewer concessions one makes the safer one is likely to be.�--Thucydides

They are our enemies, make no mistake, and to ignore or deny that fact is folly.

We try to treat them as mis-guided frinds or even worse, as un-ruly animals who can be trained.
That is not logical. Period.

They do understand defeat and they grudgingly respect the victor.

We need to beat them and beat them thoroughly.
We need to quit playing politics and diplomacy and mop the floor up with them.

That is the logic of war and that is what they understand.
We can be nice after we beat them, but beat them we must.

I don't care what kind of grievance they have against us, what kind of struggle they've had or what kind of poverty they were raised in. All of that is meaningless to me because They, the Islamofacist, attacked us first.

The only problem I have with them is that they need to lose and if that means killing everyone of them on the planet then so be it.

The choice is theirs, not ours.

Wars are supposed to be fought to win.
Having a superior force, superior strategies and tactics, superior weapons, manpower and logistics and then giving continued concessions to the enemy is in no way logical.

Logic has a place in planning a war, but not in prosecuting it.

|3.18.06 @ 12:00AM|#

Logic has a place in planning a war, but not in prosecuting it.

'Here's your sign', Joatmoaf: "War's should be procecuted on a whim."

|3.18.06 @ 12:31AM|#

1. Did you support the invasion of Iraq?

No.

2. Have you changed your position?

No. I still do not support the invasion. However, I do support our presence there now that we are present.

3. What should the U.S. do in Iraq now?

Continue with the political process. John Burns says that the current crew that the U.S. has there is a good one, so I'd say keep them in place.

|3.18.06 @ 12:51AM|#

thoreau

If it makes you feel better, you can put me down as one willing to amend my position...significantly, I believe.

As to going to war in the first place, I have always believed that if Saddam had permitted a sufficiently intrusive inspection - perhaps even an "armed inspection" - then it would have been impossible to to topple his regime by force. Such an inspection would have belatedly satisfied his treaty obligations from the first Gulf War, and satisfied all that he lacked a serious WMD threat.

In the event that we invaded in the face of his instrangience...I can't think what else we could have done, but I am much less certain that the prolonged occupation in pursuit of Project Democracy was wise.
Maybe on a much faster track - just give Iraq a sensible constitution and hold a couple of elections in less than a year. After all, we probably needed to stay until Saddam and his sons were caught, anyway.
But I am a lot less certain of any of that, now. It could well be that Project Democracy is just a bust, period. In any case, this was the ONE time to try it - win or lose, no more chances.
Looking forward, I can't see any reason to stay longer. Let us leave this year, and see what happens.

|3.18.06 @ 2:54AM|#

John writes: "Preparations for "Blessed July," a regime-directed wave of "martyrdom" operations against targets in the West, were well under way at the time of the coalition invasion."

Ah, yes. But those "preparations" most likely consisted of little more than stroking Uday's ego to avoid being thrown in prison for failure to play along.

(And, besides, last I checked Iraq was at war with Western countries, and as such, attacks against those countries would be entirely permissible. It makes no difference if they are "martyrdom" attacks. A 'conventional' attack by a squad of covert Iraqi commandos against an American or UK base would most likely end up in their martyrdom, too.)

As is often mentioned, the US has made preparations for invading most anywhere you'd like to mention, from Canada to Estonia. Those 'preparations' don't amount to much more than drawing up some rough strategies and invasion plans and target lists, but they exist.

|3.18.06 @ 3:05AM|#

"I would rather be where we are now, then facing both Iran and an Iraq run by Saddam newly freed from sanctions and welcomed back into the international community; something I am convinced would have happened within a year or two had the invasion not occurred."

Well, gosh. We could have spent three years building up our troop levels through long-term signups. We could have spent three years up-armoring vehicles and soldiers' body armor. We could have spent three years training troops in relevant languages. We could have spent three years doing all the preparation and planning that Bush failed to do.

In the end, we'd actually be closer to being ready to actually *win* against both, rather than making a half-assed effort in Iraq, straining our resources and recruiting, and THEN trying to fight Iran.

If we're having this much trouble in Iraq, how well do you think we'll do against Iran, a larger country which hasn't been kneecapped by a decade of sanctions, and which has had three years to study our approach to warfare in Iraq?

Three years of intense diplomacy and deal-making to keep the sanctions on Iraq would have been far, far easier and cheaper than fighting the war.

We could have spent a billion dollars a month buying off other UN members to keep the sanctions going, and we'd still save $3 billion a month or more. Plus thousands of American lives.

|3.18.06 @ 7:50AM|#

it is a matter of interpretation of evidence (Saddam has extensive ties to terrorist groups and a history of pursuing WMD) and low tolerance for risk to conclude that the logical next move in a defensive war against the Islamists and their state sponsors was to finish off Saddam Hussein.

Believe it or not, it is possible to believe all this,

Possible not wise or greatly informed.

and be a fan of low taxes, . . . limited government as well as an enemy of the nanny/police state.

Um, no. That stuff costs money and freedom, big time.

Jim Henley|3.18.06 @ 12:28PM|#

"It's a fact that forgiveness and tolerance is viewed as a weakness in Muslim societies. Especially the radical ones?"

Irony - meter - EXPLODING!

(Thanks for the kind words, thoreau and jp, btw.)

uncle sam|3.18.06 @ 12:55PM|#

Funny how many people think of government in terms of how they'd like it to be rather than how it is.
A government that can do what the U.S. government does is going to be as big and expensive as the U.S. government is.
There's no picking and choosing.
You want a government that can invade a country on the other side of the world with a doctrine of preemption, you're gonna get a high taxing nanny/police state.

uncle sam|3.18.06 @ 12:57PM|#

Charles Murray

1. Did you support the invasion of Iraq?


Yes.

2. Have you changed your position?


No. I'm as critical a Monday-morning quarterback as anyone else, but I think the administration's rationale for invading Iraq was correct, and an American president who had not invaded, given the information he had for making the decision, would have been irresponsible.

3. What should the U.S. do in Iraq now?


Damned if I know.

Funny/sad

|3.18.06 @ 1:44PM|#

I like Michael Young's response.

This is a man who is sooooooooooo committed to democracy, that he believes that neither opposition to the the war among the American people, nor opposition to the war among the Iraqi people(s) should be allowed to change our policy.

Makes perfect sense.

|3.18.06 @ 1:58PM|#

Jason Ligon,

"A goodly number of the people who supported did so because of some combination of toppling saddam and gaining certainty about the wmd question."

Bullshit. I do not recall a single supporter of the invasion who argued that we needed to "gain certainty" about "the wmd question." Every single person who argued on the grounds of wmds in any forum I read was quite certain about the existence of the wmds, and ridiculed anyone who was not.

You've been using weasel words to get around the fact that you have been proven wrong about the wmd threat, by phrasing your arguments like this, for months now.

I defy you - I triple dog dare you - to back it up with evidence, and find me a pre-war quote in which someone advocated invading Iraq because of the need to establish certainty on the unsettled question of whether Iraq had wmd.

|3.18.06 @ 2:08PM|#

What you say makes sense, Andrew.

|3.18.06 @ 2:21PM|#

Andrew,

Making Saddam comply with his treaty obligations only matters to me to the extent that doing so advances concrete goals, such as protecting our security from a WMD threat. The purpose of including disarmament and inspection conditions in the armistice treaty in '91 wasn't to allow us to check a series of boxes labelled "Satisfactory." It was to provide us with the tools we needed to advance certain interests.

If we could have achieved certainty about the complete absence of the WMD threat through some means that didn't include Saddam's complete adherence to the terms of the treaty (as we now know, for certain, we could have done by allowing the Blix team to complete its intrusive inspections), then what does it matter, really, whether Saddam was abiding by the treaty?

|3.18.06 @ 2:24PM|#

joe, I'm just happy to hear Andrew concede that his grand project didn't live up to his expectations.

|3.18.06 @ 2:32PM|#

Kevin B. O'Reilly,

You had an interesting comment

"they don't ask, "If I knew then what I know now ..." but rather, "Given what I knew then ..." That's how Dubya operates, and the question dictates that the answer will be the same as it was back then."

These threads always display an amazing amount of hind sight bias. We have information now that we did not have before the war and would not have had without the war. Yet many commentors seem to think all of this information was available before the war when it simply was not.

The real need is for efforts to make better information available before decisions like this are made.

|3.18.06 @ 2:42PM|#

TJIT,

I managed to figure out before the war that it wasn't justified by a WMD threat, that Saddam was not working with Al Qaeda, and that the outcome would be civil war and a terrorist training ground. So did Howard Dean. So did Dennis Kucinich. So did MoveOn.

Do you think any amount of evidence about WMDs would have dissuaded George W. Bush from carrying out his Big Plan That Couldn't Possibly Go Wrong?

|3.18.06 @ 2:42PM|#

TJIT-

I think second guessing serves a very valuable purpose: It might teach us a few lessons in skepticism, so that the next time we're confronted with a similar situation we make a better decision. If in the future we know what we knew back then, maybe we can still make a different decision by remembering the limitations on our ability to predict and plan.

|3.18.06 @ 2:48PM|#

Joe,

This ground has bee plowed before but some things are worth repeating.

1. Without boots on the ground inspections of all sites in Iraq we could not be sure Saddam did not have any WMD.

2. Saddam was not allowing these inspections to happen. He opened up a little bit before the war but that probably was a response to the run up to the war and the massing of troops on his border.

3. Saddam acted like he was hiding WMD.

4. Saddam had started two wars (Iran and Kuwait) and did not appear to be a rational actor.

5. The attacks on 9/11 illustrated how application of new technology could cause massive casualities within US borders.

6. This rendered the usual wait for attack and then respond or leave area method of dealing with terror attacks untenable.

Given the above support for invasion of Iraq was reasonable at the time and is still reasonable now.

|3.18.06 @ 2:56PM|#

TJIT,

Whatever the merits of your other statements, Saddam's invasion of Iran was based on a rational calculation regarding the strength of Iran. Iran had been severely weakened by the revolution and looked like an easy target. Indeed, if Saddam had not stopped his campaign a few weeks into his victory march into Iran he would have likely toppled the Iranian regime.

|3.18.06 @ 2:59PM|#

Joe,

You said


"I managed to figure out before the war that it wasn't justified by a WMD threat, that Saddam was not working with Al Qaeda"

Glad to hear you figured out all of that stuff ahead of time. Can you provide any data to support your conclusions or are you going to leave it an unsupported assertion?

Thanks,
TJIT

|3.18.06 @ 3:05PM|#

TJIT,

The UN teams were the boots on the ground, and I supported that. The troops massing on his border, and the threat of invastion, were the reason he allowed the inspections to go forward, and I supported that. (In a parellel universe, a hugely popular George Bush is being applauded by how brilliantly he used a combination of cooperative international pressure and unilateral saber-rattling to get the UN inspection forces into Iraq, confirm the absence of WMDs, and humiliate Saddam, leading to the coup of 2004).

Your points don't lead to invasion of Iraq, toppling of its government, and an attempt to impose our own handpicked government as the logical outcome. They lead to "something must be done." I was all for "something," as I said above.

It would be a mistake for you to assume that the only other option was to do nothing.

|3.18.06 @ 3:07PM|#

TJIT,

You are asking me to provide evidence that we were not being threatened by Saddam's WMD arsenal when we invaded?

Really?

|3.18.06 @ 3:09PM|#

Joe,

You asked,

Do you think any amount of evidence about WMDs would have dissuaded George W. Bush from carrying out his Big Plan That Couldn't Possibly Go Wrong?

And my answer would be no.

Bush had offered many arguments to support the invasion of Iraq. In my opinion Bush's decision to primarily push the WMD justification for the war was a mistake. He should have spent more time talking about the amount of post surrender obligations Saddam had broken, Saddam's bad acts (war against Iran and Kuwait)and the atrocious human rights situation in Iraq. These were all verifiable a priori and not subject to later disproval.

The fact that everybody emphasized the WMD argument seem to indicate that they really believed WMD were present.

|3.18.06 @ 3:19PM|#

Hakluyt,

In my opinion Saddam's decision to invade Iran was utterly irrational. Iraq had more oil then it knew what to do with so what would he gain by invading Iran? The only thing it offered was more territory and the inflation of a meglomaniacs ego.

Furthermore after 100s of thousands of casualities in one war with no gain in territory he turns around and decides to invade Kuwait. So it appears to me rational actions and Saddam Hussein are two things that rarely got together.

|3.18.06 @ 3:21PM|#

The fact that everybody emphasized the WMD argument seem to indicate that they really believed WMD were present.

They might have, it's true. But if so, it certainly wasn't necessary for Dick Cheney to say there was "no doubt" about WMD's when he'd received plenty of doubt from the CIA. It wasn't necessary for Rice to say those aluminum tubes could only have been used for nuclear purposes when she'd received reports from experts in the U.S. saying the exact opposite. It wasn't necessary for Powell to make a speech to the U.N. that his assistants knew was full of outright falsehoods.

If they really believed it, why did they feel the need to reject all the evidence to the contrary and lie to the American people? I think it's because they knew that if they'd argued for the war based on the facts you mentioned (all reasonable, mind you), it wouldn't have been enough to convince the American public that a war was the best solution.

|3.18.06 @ 3:25PM|#

"The fact that everybody emphasized the WMD argument seem to indicate that they really believed WMD were present."

The fact that so many in the administration accepted that "fact," despite having bountiful reasons to be skeptical, is not the honest mistake you suggest. These people have a remarkable record of accepting "facts" that run contrary to the evidence, but which bolster their ideological convictions and/or economic interests.

They accept the "fact" that abstinence-only sex ed works. They accept the "fact" that tax cuts are revenue-positive. The accept the "fact" that lead levels in children's blood far higher than currently allowed won't cause health effects. And, yes, they accepted the "fact" that Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden were working in concert, and that Iraq had ongoing WMD programs.

The other thing about Saddam's bad acts, his treaty violations, and his atrocious despotism, is that they allow for a much broader range of options, and a much longer timeframe, to deal with them, compared to the "Saddam is going to give the bomb to Osama," "Iraq can launch a WMD attack in 45 minutes" argument that was used to justify the war.

|3.18.06 @ 3:25PM|#

Joe,

You said

"You are asking me to provide evidence that we were not being threatened by Saddam's WMD arsenal when we invaded?"

This illustrates the basis of the disagreement between many of the war supporters and war opposers. Given the scale of the casualties of the 9/11 attacks many war supporters, like myself, reached the conclusion that if at all possible the US could not afford to let very destructive technolgies mature into a threat that might be under the control of non rational terror groups.

|3.18.06 @ 3:35PM|#

Joe,

You said "The UN teams were the boots on the ground, and I supported that. The troops massing on his border, and the threat of invastion, were the reason he allowed the inspections to go forward, and I supported that."

True but we could not keep troops on the border forever and Saddam had a history of allowing limited inspections and then restricitng them again when the pressure was lifted. This also ignores the fact that the support for the sanctions was fraying. Furthermore Saddam was using corruption of the oil for food program to provide money to people to help push for the lifting of the sanctions.

|3.18.06 @ 3:36PM|#

TJIT,

You still flatter yourself, and your discredited positions.

Those of us who opposed the war from the beginning AGREE with you that "if at all possible the US could not afford to let very destructive technolgies mature into a threat that might be under the control of non rational terror groups." Absolutely, I agree with that statement.

That is not the area of our disagreement. What we disagreed about was whether choosing not to invade Iraq in Spring 2003 and impose our own government in Baghdad was necessary to avoid "very destructive technolgies matur[ing] into a threat that might be under the control of non rational terror groups."

If Colin Powell had provided evidence of Iraqi nukes that was comparable to what Stevenson provided regarding Cuba, I most likely would have supported the war. As it was, I wrote to a friend the day after that he had "hit a triple," and only needed to release the follow-up information he (doubtless) had available in order to prove his case definitively. It was only when his statements were proven, one after the other, to be false that I rejected his argument that we needed to invade Iraq. And, today, even war supporters and former war supporters know what Howard Dean, Dennis Kucinich, and I had concluded in February 2003: that such an invasion was not necessary to avoid Saddam handing off WMDs to terrorists.

|3.18.06 @ 3:40PM|#

Joe,

You also said

"(In a parellel universe, a hugely popular George Bush is being applauded by how brilliantly he used a combination of cooperative international pressure and unilateral saber-rattling to get the UN inspection forces into Iraq, confirm the absence of WMDs, and humiliate Saddam, leading to the coup of 2004)."

My opinion is there was not enought of an opposition in Iraq to mount a coup. Especially after Bush the firsts behavior in asking for people to revolt and then allowing them to be slaughtered by Saddam when they did.

|3.18.06 @ 3:44PM|#

TJIT,

As Saddam's actions after Operation Desert Fox demonstrate, we would have had to keep hundreds of thousands of troops on his border "forever" to compel Saddam's compliance.

Furthermore, I don't care to split hairs between "limited inspections" and "unlimited inspections." The only difference that matters is whether the inspections were capable of determining whether there was a WMD threat, and Dr. Blix made it clear, on several occasions, that the UN team was successfully carrying out its responsibilities, even if the Iraqis weren't cooperating.

As far as the sanctions go, if the inspectors had found WMD stockpiles or programs, do you really think that, in the scary post-9/11 world, the members of the Security Council would have not supported efforts to squash them?

All the oil money in the world wouldn't convince me to let Iraq give a suitcase nuke to Al Qaeda - if that was actually a threat.

|3.18.06 @ 3:50PM|#

In my opinion (and everybody knows what they say about opinions) Nuke technolgy was not and will not be the biggest or most likely threat. That distinction belongs to bioweapons. Improving technolgy and advancing knowledge are going to make this problem worse. The successful genetic sequencing of the 1918 flu pandemic virus is an example of this. The fact that sophisticated bio work can be done without the presence of a large supporting infrastructure (no reactors, or gas centrifuges, etc.) makes it difficult to detect.

|3.18.06 @ 3:52PM|#

TJIT,

A weakened Saddam, proven before his people to be unwilling to stand up to the Yankees, would have been facing a very different domestic political situation than the "New Saladin," who was bravely resisting throughout the 90s.

Anyway, even if the coup didn't happen, Bush could have gotten a whole goody-bag of concessions - the inspections, a no-drive zone in the south comparable to that in the north, commitments from other militaries to help with enforcement...who knows, write your own ticket.

My point is, Bush was in the catbird seat in the Winter 02-03. And he blew it through hubris.

|3.18.06 @ 3:54PM|#

Joe et al,

Interesting thread and I have enjoyed the discussion. However the weather is pleasant so I am stepping away from the keyboard to enjoy the weather.

Cheers,

TJIT

|3.18.06 @ 4:01PM|#

You make a good point about bioweapons vs. nukes, and how to contain them. It leads me to conclude that nukes can be contained by "keeping him in the box," whereas bioweapons would require an ongoing inspection regime.

Enjoy the weather. It's frickin freezing in Massachusetts.

uncle sam|3.18.06 @ 4:31PM|#

4. Saddam had started two wars (Iran and Kuwait) and did not appear to be a rational actor.

Hmmm... The U.S. supported Saddam materially (chemical weapons) in his conflict with Iran and gave Saddam the impression that the U.S. would standby while he invaded Kuwait (because they were slant drilling under Iraq)

To many, the U.S. gov't does not appear to be a rational, certainly not a moral, actor.

|3.18.06 @ 4:48PM|#

I'd just like to quickly chime in and say how much I appreciate TJIT's posts. While I disagree with some (maybe even most) of them, he makes important points, and he does so in a respectful, even cordial manner. It's rather refreshing.

|3.18.06 @ 4:48PM|#

That distinction belongs to bioweapons

What happened to Dr. Germ and Mrs. Anthrax?

George W.Bush from carrying out his Big Plan

What would this plan be? I never bought the WMD or democracy argument, and I don't consider toppling Saddam as a strategic objective in and of itself.

If you want to prevent Iraq from becoming the gulf hegemon, which Saddam surely aspired to, someone has to fill the vacuum. A crippled Iraq isn't much of a counterweight to Iran.

Perhaps it's as simple as wanting to go into the middle east and punch someone in the nose.

Joatmoaf|3.18.06 @ 4:51PM|#

CENTCOMs 2006 Posture Statement

That is the nature if the war as it stands now.

Just a little reading material.
Make your own postulations and draw your own (if any) conclusions.

|3.18.06 @ 5:02PM|#

Perhaps it's as simple as wanting to go into the middle east and punch someone in the nose.

I think that was the case for a lot of people.

|3.18.06 @ 6:15PM|#

joe

If what you say is prescience...why didn't it take with the majority of the Democratic elected caucus? Bill, Hillary? John Kerry or John Edwards?

I still maintain that it is hardly trivial to allow Saddam to flout his truce obligations - where would the prospects for peaceful resolutions re. N Korea and Iran be now?

The initial war, followed by a fairly quick exit would not have been too expensive. The prolonged occupation was engineered partly to satisfy "world community" expectations. John Kerry said "you break it, you fix it" (his variant of the Pottery Barn Rule).

But why? President Clinton ordered massive air raids on Iraq...he didn't feel obliged to "fix" anything. The initial invasion of Iraq was not all that terribly destructive. Why get in a tug-of-war with insurgents over oil pipelines and electric grids?

|3.18.06 @ 6:28PM|#

I supported the war and still do. The US miliatry is in fact winning it. US casualties are declining steadily as the Iraqi military takes over. AS long as the Iraqi military has US close air support they are not going to be overthrown by any insurgents Baathist, Sunni or Shia.

|3.18.06 @ 6:53PM|#

I supported the war in Iraq, because I thought Bush would execute it competently. At this point, I know my belief was wrong, and I could not me more disgusted with pro-war Glenn Reynolds and the shills at Powerline, for all the reasons set forth here.

|3.18.06 @ 7:55PM|#

First, Mona, are you back?
We love you.

Ruthless gave himself his very name because he would have nuked Baghdad before midnight of September 11, 2001.
Ruthless would have done nothing else in response to 911, had he been President.
But after the "moment" had passed, there was nothing else that could or should have been done.

I think Nixon and Kissinger talked about foreign policy based on conveying the perception that the US President is a nutcase.

If Truman had been President on 911, there is a slim chance Ruthless' strategery could have been carried out. Because Give'em Hell Harry wasn't, we all are, and will be fucked, big time.

uncle sam|3.18.06 @ 8:00PM|#

I opposed the invasion of Iran on prinicple. As we now know, public support was orchestrated leading to the majority of invasion supporters to believe that Iraqi citizens were among the 9/11 hijackers.

It also seems apparent to me that the real reasons for the invasion were to fulfill the parameters of the PNAC recommendations calling for the establishment of a U.S. military footprint in the middle east to prevent those oil supplies from falling under the control of Islamists.

Further, I suggest the bin Laden, was likely aware of the probable U.S. response to the 9/11 attacks.

|3.18.06 @ 10:11PM|#

Uncle Sam,

Lots of oil supplies are already under the control of Islamist and have been for years, in Iran, Sudan, and ( partially) Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states. Oil markets have nothing to do with the problems with Islamists. Consumers want oil. Oil producers want money. Markets work.

|3.18.06 @ 10:24PM|#

I didn't think the casualties, both American and Iraqi civilian, would be worth whatever it was we were likely to gain, and I was, marginally, against the war for that reason. Sure, I thought the casualty count would be worse, particularly in regards to American troops; even still, the cost side of that equation was still too high for what we gained.

Seeing that the war did little or nothing to protect the American people from terror and, as I've been pointing out for years now, seems likely to have added something to the interests of Iran, a state sponsor of terror that really does present a WMD threat to the American people, I see nothing on the benefit side of that equation to have made me change my mind.

...Domino Theory, Reverse and otherwise, still seems a farce to me.

|3.18.06 @ 10:28PM|#

...by the way, does anyone out there understand why the Bush Administration has embraced nuclear proliferation?

|3.18.06 @ 10:36PM|#

What the hawks proposed to do to Iraq was just the foreign policy version of central planning and likely to work as well.

These are my sentiments, precisely.

Robert|3.18.06 @ 11:06PM|#

I'dve taken the opp'ty to carve out a Kurdistan and say "fuck you" to both the Turks and the other Iraq factions, and left the various Iraq factions to stew in their own juice.

|3.18.06 @ 11:13PM|#

First, Mona, are you back?

Never left, in terms of reading. But yeah.

|3.19.06 @ 2:02AM|#

I was strongly opposed to the invasion well before it began. I have not changed my mind at all in that regard. Today, I would claim "victory" (if rhetorically possible) and get the hell out immediately, with the uncomfortable knowledge that doing so would deal a considerable blow to American foreign policy for some time. However, that's better to me than the alternatives.

|3.19.06 @ 12:00PM|#

Andrew,

Actually, a majority of Democrats in the House voted against the war. Why didn't more? Why didn't a majority in the Senate? First, there's the fact that this doubt went against Beltway conventional wisdom explains a lot of it. Second, the Senate is a collegial place, and the die was already cast, so many Democrat Senators probably didn't want to rock the boat, and wanted to maintain good relations to influence the conduct of the inevitable. Not to mention, I'm just plain smarter than most Democratic, and all Repuglican, Senators.

I agree, it would have been a bad idea to "allow Saddam to flout his treaty obligations." That's why we had his country under sanctions, that's why the US and UK kept bombing the place, and that's why the Blix team went in. But once again, you setting up a false dichotomy between doing nothing and the invasion we saw in March 2003.

And President Clinton didn't feel an obligation to "fix" anything because he didn't leave the country in a power vacuum to be filled by warring factions, foreign jihadists, and neighboring countries.

|3.19.06 @ 12:07PM|#

I swear to God "Repuglican" was a typo.

Mona,

"I supported the war in Iraq, because I thought Bush would execute it competently." For a while, I considered the question of invading Iraq to be a "close call," and commented so. This was even after the WMD argument had collapsed. Saddam Hussein really was That Bad.

What ultimately made me come down against was my certainty that George W. Bush couldn't manage a successful Grenada, nevermind the administration and rebirth of Mesopotamia.

Like the widespread acceptance of the WMD threat argument, I am baffled why so many intelligent people looked at the Bush administration, looked at the task they had laid out for themselves in Iraq, and decided, "Yeah, sure, they're up for it."

uncle sam|3.19.06 @ 12:22PM|#

Lots of oil supplies are already under the control of Islamist and have been for years, in Iran, Sudan, and ( partially) Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states. Oil markets have nothing to do with the problems with Islamists. Consumers want oil. Oil producers want money. Markets work.

So? Since when do motivations necessarily hinge upon reality?
Read the PNAC documents.
If there were no oil in the middle east, would we be so interested in what goes on there?

|3.19.06 @ 1:01PM|#

I thought of one area in which my opinion has changed - my estimation of the American military. I could not have dreamed that the initial combat phase would go so smoothly, that an urban operation like Falluja could be carried out with so few casualties, or that personnel at all levels would demonstrate such resourcefulness in improvising solutions to problems they are neither trained, supplied, or adequately supported to confront. I suspected much higher casualties in the main force battle phase of the invasion, and I was wrong.

|3.19.06 @ 1:29PM|#

joe, saying that you're smarter than a Senator isn't saying much. Give yourself a little more credit.

roger|3.19.06 @ 1:56PM|#

There were two weird things about that survey.
The first is the lack of any mention of Afghanistan and Pakistan. We know, now, more about the absolute incompetence of the Rumsfeld crowd, Osama's escape from Tora Bora and the Bush administration's eagerness to forget about him (following in the path of Clinton's eagerness to forget about him). Hence, like some happy bacteria in a petri dish, Al Qaeda is strengthening its ties in the one country in the world that has a government with more than strong ties to Islamic terrorist groups -- Pakistan -- and possesses a nuclear weapon. Nobody seems to care about the opportunity cost of the comically named "long war" -- a self-fullfilling prophecy, when you are too incompetent to fight a short war.

The second is the way everybody assumes that invasion and occupation are seamless parts of a whole. While I was opposed to the invasion, and thought that the best way of getting rid of Saddam was the slower process of a., detente with Iran, and b., the strengthening of Northern Iraq, what I was opposed to with might and main was the occupation. There was no reason for it. Iraq is a potentially rich country. Besides managing debt relief for the country, the U.S. had no business whatsoever trying to run it. After laying off the debts contracted under Saddam, Iraq, like any normal country, should have rebuilt itself by borrowing from international lenders. With it oil capacity, it could do this on pretty favorable terms. No American technocrat maneuvering the "privitization" of the Iraqi oil structure. No Bremer issuing insane orders. No Rumsfeld. No Bush. Out in six months.

The discredit brought to the occupation by the war's supporters -- their support for a criminal, Chalabi, their support for the shabby takedown and disbursement of the Iraqi army, their support for the vastly corrupt and greedy "reconstruction" via Haliburton of the country, made them not just supporters of the war, but vectors of corruption. They are, simply, the worst.

Jesse Walker|3.19.06 @ 2:17PM|#

I could not me more disgusted with pro-war Glenn Reynolds and the shills at Powerline

Mona, you sound like Democratic Underground. Cancel my subscription!

|3.19.06 @ 2:54PM|#

Hey Mona,

At this period in our nation's history, we are facing serious dangers. Extricating ourselves from Iraq without setting off a catastrophe and seriously damaging our security is going to take a high degree of competence, experience, character, and intelligence. Not to mention a broad base of knowledge to draw on, an innate toughness, courage, and the confidence in one's own ability to get through tough times.

We had a chance to change the character of our leadership two Novembers ago, and I remember very well how you spent that summer and autumn.

It was a close race. People wanted to vote George Bush out of office, but there was a sense of unease about whether the alternative was strong, decent, and tough enough to watch out for our vital interests. Ultimately, just enough people decided that there was a whiff of disloyalty, cowardice, and dishonor about John Kerry that the people who started and executed this war were allowed to remain in office. But it was a near thing, and the legions of volunteers who were willing to get down into the muck and play dirty for old George W. very likely made the difference.

|3.19.06 @ 4:31PM|#

joe, the point is that Mona now sees the dangers. She has admitted that it's time to vote Dem, and has admitted that the straw that broke the camel's back was when Bush declared himself to be above the law.

She has a very clear grasp of the dangers facing us. I salute her.

|3.19.06 @ 5:53PM|#

Joe,

'Like the widespread acceptance of the WMD threat argument, I am baffled why so many intelligent people looked at the Bush administration, looked at the task they had laid out for themselves in Iraq, and decided, "Yeah, sure, they're up for it"'

Freakin hillarious. Incidentally, at the beginning I was a fence-sitter who leaned in favor of the invasion. Now I've made some changes philosophically and I think I wouldn't support it-- especially knowing now how the Bush administration would use our status of being "at war" to fuck with the bill of rights and spend way too much money on schemes of dubious worth and utility. What now? I don't have a clue-- but neither am I a political scientist.

|3.19.06 @ 6:13PM|#

There are explanations for why people jumped on the WMD bandwagon. ...I'm not sayin' they were good reasons, just reasons. I have to confess that I was as surprised as anyone to hear that Saddam Hussein didn't have WMD. If the Bush Administration had told us that Iraq didn't have any WMD, that they were just bluffin', I would have thought they were lyin'.

People associated the invasion of Iraq with our response to 9/11 and the, seemingly forgotten, anthrax attack. I don't think there's any question that we wouldn't have invaded Iraq without 9/11; I have serious doubts about us invading Iraq without the anthrax attacks.

...I was thinkin' about that while watchin' V for Vendetta yesterday.

Somehow, our rage was misappropriated and squandered after 9/11 and the subsequent anthrax attacks--I think a better leader would have done something better with all that rage and unity and international sympathy. I remember being so happy about Bush beating Gore. ...I remember being all warm and fuzzy about the adults being back in charge again. How disappointing!

...and Rumsfeld and Chaney and President Bush, et. al., they must be disappointed themselves too. They didn't want to screw up.

fyodor|3.19.06 @ 6:43PM|#

Somehow, our rage was misappropriated and squandered after 9/11

From very shortly after 9/11 I had the distinct feeling our nation was living out Hamlet, i.e. following a powerful swelling up of righteous anger that had inspired a passionate call to action, we were coming to the realization that that earlier stage of emotion was a much simpler affair than the next one of figuring what actually should be done.

|3.19.06 @ 7:41PM|#

Jesse Walker writes: Mona, you sound like Democratic Underground. Cancel my subscription!

You're entitled; I have it coming.

But in my defense, there was not the ample evidence of just how sick the Bush/Frist GOP was until after the '04 election. Schiavo was my first big clue that these folks are insane and dangerous.

The extent to which they were entirely serious about Yoo theories of absolutely unlimited, lawless Executive power really hit home with the wholesale violations of FISA, that Bush insists he has a right to do, and will continue to do.

I didn't vote for a goddam king. And I thought they must surely have listened to the many analysts who warned that the sectarian, tribal animosities in Iraq must be prepared for and dealt with, post-Saddam.

Bush is an incompetent who thinks he is above the law. A more dangeorus combination is hard to imagine. But let's also be real here -- John Kerry was not an inspiring alternative, and the Democrats continue to behave like frightened sheep. Except for Russ Feingold.

|3.19.06 @ 7:50PM|#

Inspiring or not, I wouldn't have written those things, repeated those things, about a guy who spilled his blood on a foreign battlefield, just so my guy could win an election. It wasn't right, and the awfulness of the cause you did it for just makes it worse.

OK. That's it. I'm done. I just had to get that off my chest.

|3.19.06 @ 7:54PM|#

joe writes: Inspiring or not, I wouldn't have written those things, repeated those things, about a guy who spilled his blood on a foreign battlefield, just so my guy could win an election. It wasn't right, and the awfulness of the cause you did it for just makes it worse.

I don't retract one thing I wrote about John Kerry. He is repulsive.

But so is George Bush, albeit in different ways.

|3.19.06 @ 8:27PM|#

Presidents will never do the "right" thing.
I'm thinking of Eisenhower as a "competent" President, but where was he on equal rights and tolerating McCarthy, and having Nixon for a VP?
There will never be both competence and an agenda that is good for society.

Anarchy continues to be music to mine ears.

|3.19.06 @ 8:40PM|#

Ruthless writes: Presidents will never do the "right" thing.
I'm thinking of Eisenhower as a "competent" President, but where was he on equal rights and tolerating McCarthy, and having Nixon for a VP?

But Ike hated McCarthy, and by that point Nixon was dissing him, too. Ike was pretty reasonable, and won on a platform largely constituted of a promise to end the Korean war. Which he did.

|3.19.06 @ 8:47PM|#

Hey, "I liked Ike," but his interstate highway system may be why later US Presidents feel compelled to trade blood for oil.

And is the Korean war ended?
Ask Alec Baldwin. Kim Jong Il waxed him good, huh?

|3.19.06 @ 8:53PM|#

But let's also be real here -- John Kerry was not an inspiring alternative, and the Democrats continue to behave like frightened sheep.

"alternative" is the wrong word here, if you're talking about your vote. ...there was one option you had, that would have made it known, to anyone who cared, that you, most certainly, did not want a king. ...You could have voted Libertarian, Mona.

|3.19.06 @ 8:55PM|#

Unc Sam

"If there were no oil in the middle east, would we be so interested in what goes on there?"

Well, we would not be in Iraq, if Islamist Middle Easterners had not shown a repeated propensity to kill large numbers of Americans. Oil markets have nothig to do with it. This is not pleasant, but it is true: the road to peace (or the only peace worth having) is paved with 40,000 dead jihadis.

|3.19.06 @ 8:59PM|#

Mona-

Did you vote in a swing state in 2004?


Ken-

To be fair, I can see why she wouldn't vote LP. In addition to the fact that he was not quite claiming "divine right of Presidents" in 2004, there's also the fact that Badnarik was...interesting.

|3.19.06 @ 9:00PM|#

nds,
If what you just said were true, we'd be most of the way there. Instead we're getting further from peace.
(Like a good scout, I attended my local peace rally today.)

|3.19.06 @ 9:29PM|#

To be fair, I can see why she wouldn't vote LP. In addition to the fact that he was not quite claiming "divine right of Presidents" in 2004, there's also the fact that Badnarik was...interesting.

I think the Schlesinger Report was to me as FISA seems to have been to Mona. It came out right before the election, as I recall. ...and, by my reading, the divine right of Presidents was all over that document.

...and what about Padilla? ...and others? Doesn't the list go on?

Tim Cavanaugh|3.19.06 @ 9:31PM|#

Well I'm always glad to see Mona back.

|3.19.06 @ 9:46PM|#

Ken-

We all have different breaking points. The fact remains that Mona reached her breaking point. That's more than certain people can say, even at this late hour. The only hope for the Republic is if enough people reach their breaking points. It's lamentable that it went this far, but isn't there more rejoicing in heaven over a reformed sinner than over a righteous man, or something like that? Likewise, I would rather welcome another dissenter to the bandwagon rather than castigate her for not joining sooner.

Of course, Mona, you do realize that, if this whole thing goes south on us, the last ones on the bandwagon will be at the bottom of the inmate hierarchy in the concentration camps, right? I suggest you stock up on smokes so you have some currency to buy us off. :)

|3.19.06 @ 10:02PM|#

FWIW, Padilla was my breaking point.

|3.19.06 @ 10:02PM|#

Ruthless,

What is the metric that you use to say we are further from peace? Not that this is necessarily the right metric, US casualties in Iraq have been declining steadily for 5 months.

|3.19.06 @ 10:03PM|#

Let's see. This is Sunday...
I'm gonna hold off on making the puerile sexual innuendoes in front of Mona until Thursday at the soonest.

|3.19.06 @ 10:06PM|#

nds,
You said it yourself. Your metric ain't right.

uncle sam|3.19.06 @ 10:11PM|#

if Islamist Middle Easterners had not shown a repeated propensity to kill large numbers of Americans

and westerners have historically shown a propensity for killing large numbers of, uh, non-westerners.

|3.19.06 @ 10:46PM|#

A considerable number, maybe a vast majority, of the insurgents are fighting because the country has been invaded and occupied. Since the American presence is the cause of their participation in the insurgency, their incentive to fight would accordingly vanish if the United States pulled out. It's an experiment well worth conducting.

Is this guy living on earth? IEDs and suicide bombers are, and have been, taking out far more Iraqi civilians than anything else. Civilians and Iraqi security forces (whatever form) have clearly been the intended targets more often than not.

The "insurgents" (who are actually terrorists) aren't "united" against the US. They spend most of their time terrorizing the Iraqi population, so that when the US does leave they can (they hope) take over.

|3.19.06 @ 10:58PM|#

1. Did you support the invasion of Iraq?

Mixed.

In principle yes, but practically no. I'm convinced Saddam would have become a threat once the sanctions were lifted, and they would have been. Though, I wasn't fully convinced the WMDs were there and this was (the first) unsettling about Bush.

[not that I'm ready to vote democrat, they aren't any better]

Practically, it seemed doubtful that anyone who wasn't as ruthless as Saddam (sorry Ruthless, I'm not sure even you make the cut) could control Iraq. The US would never be able to do it.

2. Have you changed your position?

No.

3. What should the U.S. do in Iraq now?

Letting Iraq turn into three countries sounds like a good start. Letting the Shias beat the hell out of the Sunnis for a while, if that's what it takes to subdue them, also wouldn't be a bad idea. The insurgents-who-are-terrorists aren't going to stop until they're afraid of someone, and the US will never be brutal enough to make them afraid.

The key to achieving peace in Iraq is that someone is going to have the make the terrorists afraid. That will probably require killing most of them. And that will probably involve a lot of innocent casualties.

Damned if I know how to get to the end of the road, but I'm betting the US will never pull it off on its own.

|3.19.06 @ 11:07PM|#

A considerable number, maybe a vast majority, of the insurgents are fighting because they want to reimpose a brutal, Baathist dictatorship in Iraq. Onbe subset is fighting because thay are paid to do so. Another subset is fighting for Islamist principles. They are all assholes and the US military is a great force for freedom in opposing them.

|3.19.06 @ 11:20PM|#

Just for the record, my understanding is that IEDs tend to get the troops--mostly American--and suicide bombers tend to get the locals.

...and as far as the "insurgents" taking over, I'm sure you're not talking about Kurdistan--maybe you mean the Green Zone? Is there somewhere else where we're in charge?

I'm sure you don't think of Sadr's people and others like them as "insurgents", right? If we withdrew, Sadr's people and Sistani's people would take over. ...Which is what we want, isn't it?

It seems to me that what we've been trying to do with the elections, etc., is hand the controls of government over to Sistani's people and Sadr's people and other people like them. Some of us might see that as six of one, half a dozen of the other. ...It's not as if Sadr's people, or people like them, were going to join the loyal opposition the first time they lost an election anyway. ...it's not as if people like Sistani or Sadr need an election for legitimacy either.

...local legitimacy, that is. Sometimes it seems like the only people who need the legitimacy of an election are the American people, and if that's the case, that's one of the few times I think maybe our concerns should come in second.

|3.19.06 @ 11:57PM|#

Sometimes it seems like the only people who need the legitimacy of an election are the American people

Now that is a very good point Ken.

|3.19.06 @ 11:59PM|#

The only hope for the Republic is if enough people reach their breaking points.

Absolutely! ...the more the merrier. I would have liked to have Mona around as opposition.

Neither Reason people, as this survey shows, nor Hit & Run commenters were of one mind against the Iraq War. I count, at least, four Reason posters who were supportive of the war. ...and while I know it can get hot in here sometimes, well reasoned pro-War opinions were always welcomed by most of us commenters, most of the time.

...except for the NeoLibertarians, the Torture Apologists, the Reverse Domino Theorists, the Patriot Act Supporters, the Cindy Sheehan Haters, the Propaganda Victims, and anyone and everyone who ever came here by way of an instalanche. ; )

Now, if Mona will just refrain from trying to discourage Jennifer from talking about her sex life, all will be forgiven. ; ) ...I understand the reasons people supported the Iraq War better than I understand the reasons why anyone would want to discourage...

|3.20.06 @ 12:06AM|#

They are all assholes and the US military is a great force for freedom in opposing them.

I agree the terrorists are assholes. I don't agree that we're every going to "free" the general populace of Iraq any more than we have already. Not that this should ever have been the explicit motive for displacing Saddam.

If a Saddam-like dicatator invaded and took over a western European nation, it could make sense to displace him and "free" the people. But Islamic countries generally don't look at the world the way we do.

I won't be surprised if Sistani's people and Sadr's people turn out to be only marginally better than Saddam was to live under -- and I think, this is probably what the Iraqi people want. So be it.

My concern, first and last, is US security. "Freeing" the Iraqi people is entirely secondary, and it must never be forgotten that they probably don't even want the kinds of freedoms that we do.

|3.20.06 @ 12:35AM|#

I was going through at a pretty fast clip looking for anyone who had actually changed their minds. I didn't notice any, but mine was a cursory read.

I enjoyed Hitchens and Charles Murray the most.

The crux of the matter seems to be that those who opposed the war, did so mostly out of a knee jerk opposition to any military endeavor. And those who supported it, weren't worried about WMD, which we knew Saddam had at one time - that alone was enough evidence for the realists, but they were more concerned with the larger matter of state sponsored terrorism in general.

|3.20.06 @ 12:47AM|#

The crux of the matter seems to be that those who opposed the war, did so mostly out of a knee jerk opposition to any military endeavor.

I don't see that as the "crux" of the matter; in fact, I don't see how that observation relates to anything anyone said.

|3.20.06 @ 12:52AM|#

I thought it was a pretty good observation.

|3.20.06 @ 9:58AM|#

Does this mean that real libertarians can disagree with the President now? And if Mona has renewed her subscirption, dare I suggest the money be spent on a working server?

|3.20.06 @ 10:17AM|#

The crux of the matter seems to be that those who opposed the war, did so mostly out of a knee jerk opposition to any military endeavor.

�I don't see that as the "crux" of the matter; in fact, I don't see how that observation relates to anything anyone said.�

Thank you, Ken. That sort of insipid lack of understanding of oppositional views is exactly why people all over the world find Americans so stupid these days. It�s just like those who opposed Bush � ��Der a bunch a Bush-haters!� � as if we just decided that Bush is a crooked idiot because it sated our inane desire to slander Republicans.

I was against the war because:

1) We had just been thrown into this stupid �war on terror� and had to concentrate on Afghanistan and on the hunt for more terrorists.

2) Saddam�s was a secular, albeit miserable, regime in a region threatened by theocratic revolutionaries.

3) Iraq was not a homogenous state and required a strongman to keep it together. Though Saddam was not the ideal strongman, he was keeping the state together.

4) Iraq was not a source of global terror and turning into one would only make for more terrorists and new recruits from a place where none had come before.

5) Whether or not Saddam had WMD, it made no sense for him to use them unless we did invade � which is how we found out that he didn�t (and so we used our troops as guinea pigs in that fun little experiment). There was no political impetus for Saddam to attack America with WMD or to assist the terrorists with WMD as Saddam had everything to lose and nothing to gain from such acts.

6) The bunch of sleazy morons we have running things these days would surely make things even worse in Iraq as far as the day to day lives of the Iraqis went. For example: why on Earth are we importing workers to Iraq to rebuild their infrastructure when there are regions there with up to 90% unemployment - and at a time when there is such widespread civil strife that could be curtailed by gainful employment?

7) We did not have enough popular support, be it manpower or money, either here or abroad for the effort.

The list goes on � but that is why we were against the war. People who think that only knee-jerk pacifists (like Jesus) were against the war are morons.

JMJ

|3.20.06 @ 10:19AM|#

Padilla bothered me. A lot. But I gave Bush the benefit of the doubt, figuring Padilla must be a high value target with knowledge that it was urgent he spill.

But when the NYT reported the illegal NSA program last December, and the outrageous legal "defenses" began spewing from the DoJ, I went batshit crazy. Watching the performance at Powerline on that issue convinced me that if Bush were captured on video sodomizing a toddler, they'd defend it. And I realized Padilla & etc were nothing more than Bush's complete disregard for civil liberties and his own vision of himself as monarch.

A few weeks ago Reynolds spat out that if the war in Iraq fails, lots of people will blame the "unpatriotic" media.

What about the possibility that George Bush is a major screw-up?

I despise intellectual dishonesty, and that is what is pouring forth from Powerline, Reynolds and the Bush apologists all over the web. At The Corner, Andrew McCarthy actually said that if the NSA program came before a court that ruled against Bush, Bush should ignore the ruling! These people are authoritarian lunatics. It makes me sick.

|3.20.06 @ 10:24AM|#

The crux of the matter seems to be that those who opposed the war, did so mostly out of a knee jerk opposition to any military endeavor.

The crux of this statement ignores the fact that a lot of us who opposed invading Iraq nonetheless supported the invasion of Afghanistan, which blows the "knee jerk opposition to military endeavors" theory right out of the water.

|3.20.06 @ 10:26AM|#

Exactly, Jennifer. AND - those of us believed that we should concentrate on making Afghanistan a success story rather than turning our backs on it, doing it half-assed by turning our attention to Iraq.

JMJ

|3.20.06 @ 10:40AM|#

You are right JSM, there are excellent pragmatic reasons to oppose the war in Irak. The main thing to remember is that we do not have infinite troops nor infinite money, so we have to use them where they will do most good. Invading Irak was not it.

Now there are comments that we are hampered in dealing with Iran because we have too many troops immobilized in Irak. That's what I call a real strategic triumph. Waste your manpower on somenoe who you can keep contained, and then have nothing when the lunatics at Iran get the bomb...

But if you mention things like that they call you a terrorist-lover.

God, this gang who could not shoot straight makes me nostalgic for Clinton...

|3.20.06 @ 10:50AM|#

I wouldn't worry much about Iran either. The best reports put them 5-10 years away from the bomb and another 5-10 on top of that for delivery systems. More wagging the dog.

JMJ

|3.20.06 @ 10:51AM|#

Dead thread I just revisited, but I see joe called me out here:

"You've been using weasel words to get around the fact that you have been proven wrong about the wmd threat, by phrasing your arguments like this, for months now.

I defy you - I triple dog dare you - to back it up with evidence, and find me a pre-war quote in which someone advocated invading Iraq because of the need to establish certainty on the unsettled question of whether Iraq had wmd."

I triple dog dare to you demonstrate that I at ANY POINT indicated that I was 100% certain there were WMDs. What I was saying from the very beginning was that there was no way to know without boots on the ground. I thought it extremely likely personally, but remarked on more than one occasion that the administration's guilt was in over-selling their position. From the very beginning.

During the lead up to war, I mocked those who were certain that there were no weapons, because such certainty could not have been empiricially arrived at. I suggest you re-read my long documented cases for war on this forum before accusing me of weasling out of anything. Jackass.

|3.20.06 @ 10:57AM|#

joe:

"In a parellel universe, a hugely popular George Bush is being applauded by how brilliantly he used a combination of cooperative international pressure and unilateral saber-rattling to get the UN inspection forces into Iraq, confirm the absence of WMDs, and humiliate Saddam, leading to the coup of 2004"

In a parallel universe, Saddam must have had some reason to believe that saber rattling meant anything. Since everyone in the western world was in on the joke that military action was never really an option, this parallel universe Saddam must have been singularly dense.

|3.20.06 @ 11:18AM|#

I'd just like to point out that every time Glenn Reynolds taps a key on his keyboard, he makes the world a dumber place.

"Win." Well now, why didn't they think of that?

Dan T.|3.20.06 @ 12:01PM|#

All those expert responses and I don't recall the word "oil" mentioned once.

|3.20.06 @ 12:12PM|#

So enlighten us, O font of oily knowledge.

Tim Cavanaugh|3.20.06 @ 12:27PM|#

I think this Mona is an imposter. She's got a different email, IP and sig than the real Mona. The real Mona is still somewhere out there in the blue, rereading her pre-2003 issues of Reason, throwing out subscription renewal notices, and wondering where it all went wrong.

Jesse Walker|3.20.06 @ 12:33PM|#

I think all the Monas are imposters. The first one left and never came back!

|3.20.06 @ 12:57PM|#

Tim-

But didn't Mona say something a while back about doing a new job search? If so, then she could have moved and started using a different IP address at the office as well as at home.

And isn't it my job to raise these identity speculations while you offer cryptic commentary to stir the pot? :)

|3.20.06 @ 1:01PM|#

Tim and Jesse: Now come on, guys. It's really me. Get Gary in this thread (or whatever he is calling himself these days) and I'm sure he and I will be pissing at each other just like old times. You won't doubt my identity in that event.

I still think there was a good case to be made for taking out Saddam. But George Bush is the most incompetent, statist, monarchical Executive in the nation's history, and was the last man who should have been undertaking such a mission. If I have to wear sackcloth and ashes around here for a time, fine. I was wrong to think Bush was a good president.

I was wrong. He's a menace to the Republic.

So. Can I still play here?

|3.20.06 @ 1:18PM|#

I was wrong to think Bush was a good president.

Nonsense. Real libertarians support the government, especially now that 9-11 has changed everything.

If only Virginia Postrel were still here, more people might understand this.

|3.20.06 @ 1:34PM|#

Lots of good comments here. Glad to see people finally honing-in on the "competence" issue. The biggest blunders were in the diplomatic area in the run-up to war. Most of these we probably won't learn about for years, but Exhibit A is Rumsfeld's comment, at the height of Tony Blair's efforts to get Parliamentary and public support for the war, that we "really didn't need the UK's help if they didn't want to participate". There was a hasty retraction via the State Department, but the whole incident speaks volumes about the attitudes of the people around President Bush. People like Joatmoaf will never understand this, but sometimes style matters as much as substance. Newsweek nailed it in an editorial shortly after the invasion, but I didn't keep the link.

|3.20.06 @ 1:34PM|#

Jason Ligon,

In your fury, you completely reversed the meaning of my post.

You have been making the argument that Bush invaded Iraq for the purpose of "gaining certainty about the wmd question."

No, he did not. Every member of the administration that I have seen speak or write, and every prominent war supporter who lent his voice to the debate in the Winter of 02-03, was quite certain that Iraq had WMDs. They were not establishing certainty through the invasion, because they were alrady certain.

Your attempt to revise history, and pretend the case for war was based on the need to establish certainty on an open-ended question, is dishonest, and wholly unsupported by evidence.

|3.20.06 @ 1:43PM|#

And Jason,

"In a parallel universe, Saddam must have had some reason to believe that saber rattling meant anything."

He seemed to be fairly convinced when the let the Blix team into the country. We don't have to speculate on whether saber-rattling would work with Saddam. It DID work - once in 1998, when the Iraqi goverment responded to Operation Desert Fox by eliminating the country's remaining WMD stocks and programs, and again in 2003, when they responded to Bush and Blair's saber rattling by allowing the UN back in.

|3.20.06 @ 1:58PM|#

Joe: What information led you to conclude that there were no WMD's in Iraq? The fact that the evidence presented by Powell was weak? Other facts? Just curious. The point of my question to you is how you were certain Iraq did not have the weapons? Or were you really saying that you were certain the Bush administration did not have evidence of them?

I remember my take at the time was, given their "bull in a china shop" diplomacy, that they had darn sure better find WMD, and it appeared to me at the time that they were gambling. I think the main reason the polls are the way they are has nothing to do with the way things are going, and everything to do with the fact that no WMD were found. I was afraid something like this would happen if the WMD's didn't turn up, and I couldn't understand at the time why they were hanging everything on it, other than that it was the path of least resistance. Clearly, the ultimate answer is that they were arrogant and incompetent.

Peter K.|3.20.06 @ 2:12PM|#

Hitchens and Young are correct.

I was for toppling Saddam, but don't especially like the Bush gang.
I never questioned anti-intervention people's patriotism nor called them traitors. Most had legitimate concerns.

For the pedantic legalists:
The facts are: Saddam's own generals thought Iraq had WMDs (chemical and biological) and were shocked when he told them they didn't.

Saddam didn't recognize how 9-11 changed America, and kept playing it ambiguous in an efforrt to deter Iraq's Shiites and Iran.
He also thought Russia and France wouldn't let it get to intervention and didn't believe America would risk casaulties.

I doubted there were al Qaeda ties or nukes. But I do think Saddam or his sons would have eventially gotten around sanctions even more than they were. They were ready to restart their nuclear program as soon as they could. These are facts.

Toppling the Baathists only took 3 weeks because Saddam was a paranoid dictator and wouldn't allow various commanders to communicate. Basically they made a lot of mistakes. (It's an interesting fact that Iraq would have had nukes if it had waited a bit to invade Kuwait, just as al Qaeda probably would have gotten control of Pakistan's nukes, if they hadn't pissed off the U.S. with 9-11).

Rumsfeld and Franks screwed up by not listening to commanders on the ground who wanted to slow down on the way to Baghdad and root out many of the fighters who would become the insurgency.

I doubt de-Baathification was as big a mistake as people say.
The majority Shiite population now had a say in their government, as did the minority Kurds. Just like Palestinians and black South Africans, etc., they have a right to say how their government works. Is this libertarian? I think so. I don't understand how libertarians could be objectively "pro-dictatorship."

I don't undestand people's sympathy for the 20% minority Sunnis who had run the country for their own benefit.

Pushing for democracy or representative government in the Middle East is a good idea in its own right and might help prevent an even more devastating future 9-11. It's naive to think that if we would have backed off the Middle East, they wouldn't keep coming at us.

|3.20.06 @ 2:31PM|#

Peter K.: I've been considering whether support for democracy in tribal-based societies makes any sense. All that seems to happen is the majority immediately starts looting the minority. I suppose this is preferable to the reverse, but I think your assumptions about a prospective liberal democracy in Iraq are glib at best. Some type of federalism might work, but only if there is some unifying "glue" to hold the whole country together, which doesn't seem to exist in most African nations, or in Iraq. Still, like you I don't think we had any choice but to support Shia rule, with Kurdish autonomy in the north, which the Shia are willing to go along with for the most part because they are preoccupied dealing with the Sunnis. Autonomy for the Sunni won't work because their territory doesn't have any oil, but a Sunni insurgency is vastly preferable to a Shia insurgency. The Strategy Page seems to think that the Sunnis will eventually be driven out of the country. If that happened, it would not be a total win for Iran because I understand that the Iraqi Shia are for the most part different ethnically from the Iranian Shia. Al Sadr is cosying up to the Iranians, and publically minimizing conflict with the Sunnis, because his power base is in the part of Iraq that doesn't have any oil.

|3.20.06 @ 2:34PM|#

Peter K.: I've been considering whether support for democracy in tribal-based societies makes any sense. All that seems to happen is the majority immediately starts looting the minority. I suppose this is preferable to the reverse, but I think your assumptions about a prospective liberal democracy in Iraq are glib at best. Some type of federalism might work, but only if there is some unifying "glue" to hold the whole country together, which doesn't seem to exist in most African nations, or in Iraq. Still, like you I don't think we had any choice but to support Shia rule, with Kurdish autonomy in the north, which the Shia are willing to go along with for the most part because they are preoccupied dealing with the Sunnis. Autonomy for the Sunni won't work because their territory doesn't have any oil, but a Sunni insurgency is vastly preferable to a Shia insurgency. The Strategy Page seems to think that the Sunnis will eventually be driven out of the country. If that happened, it would not be a total win for Iran because I understand that the Iraqi Shia are for the most part different ethnically from the Iranian Shia. Al Sadr is cosying up to the Iranians, and publically minimizing conflict with the Sunnis, because his power base is in the part of Iraq that doesn't have any oil.

Peter K.|3.20.06 @ 3:46PM|#

"your assumptions about a prospective liberal democracy in Iraq are glib at best. "

What were my assumptions? All I know is that Saddam and his 20% Sunni minority dictatorship weren't working very well, to say the least.

In a parallel universe, anti-interventionists get to experience how bad Saddam's regime really was so they will never minimize it again. In a different parallel universe, Saddam isn't toppled and things get really, really bad. Turkey, Iran, and Saudi Arabia all intervene on a particular side and the result makes our universe's Iraq look like a pleasant, sunny Sunday afternoon.

Oil prices skyrocket, the global economy tanks. Wall Street lays an egg. Banks fail. Unemployment goes through the roof. The fun begins.

|3.20.06 @ 3:55PM|#

Peter K.: Well, if "(p)ushing for democracy or representative government in the Middle East is a good idea in its own right and might help prevent an even more devastating future 9-11" does not assume that liberal democracy can function successfully in Iraq, I apologize. Otherwise, I would appreciate a little more analysis of the issues I raised.

Peter K.|3.20.06 @ 5:36PM|#

Well isn't Federalism sort of representative govenment? Getting rid of dictatorships is the goal. Can these societies work without dictatorships holding them together? I hope so. I don't feel this is "glib." Other races and cultures have been able to move from tribal forms of government into more representative and democratic forms.

|3.21.06 @ 7:35AM|#

Peter K you are making the idealist mistake, you think that because an outcome is desirable, that it is easy to obtain.

Yes, it would very good to have working liberal democracies in the Middle East. Do we know how to get them? No.

There is an old book, written around 1953, I think by Norman L. Stamps "Why democracies fail" in which he makes the point that a working democracy is the product of a long practice, and that what he calls "premature experiments" in which you try to install a democracy without having an historic basis for it are doomed to failure.

Democracy needs certain basis to flourish, and without those, democracy is simply a chaotic interval between autocratic regimes.

|3.21.06 @ 7:42AM|#

There has been a change in my opinion about the war. I was against it because I thought that Irak was the wrong country to attack. I mean, if your enemy is islamism, why attack a secular regime that persecutes islamists?

I have change my opinion. I should have been against the war because it was going to be run by Curly, Larry, and Moe, and we know what happens when they are in charge...