Buyer's Remorse?

Feel ambivalent about the Iraq war, either then or now? Then this Slate dialogue in which "Liberal Hawks Reconsider the Iraq War" is probably for you. Participants include Kenneth Pollack, Fareed Zakaria, Christopher Hitchens, and more. Link via Matthew Yglesias.

Comments

[HH]

Thus far, I don't know if we're going to see any dramatic changes in position...

[Jean Bart]

HH,

Friedman's mantra has been this all along.

[Andrew]

I liked the two contributions I read-- they expressed the point of view better, likely than I could have, and I suspect that in the weeks and months to come I will be parphrasing these arguments.

One place I suppose I can't dovetail with the others is in deploring the "diplomatic fall-out" that has resulted from all this. I am actually pleased by the sorting out that has taken place-- we have (in my opinion) liberated ourselves from European "allies", and multi-national institutions, which were less than useless before this all started. Bush's "mishandling" of the diplomacy may be genius, or (more likely) DUMB luck...but it was a good thing, not a bad thing-- and Libertarians, more than most, should understand this.

Respectable Opinion deplores the decline in US reliance on NATO (Oh my God!) and the UN (Gracious!)...but I am thrilled: I never was so respectable, I 'spose.

[Jean Bart]

Andrew,

And here a week ago you were arguing for a U.S. more integrated into NATO, and even greater defense presence in Europe. This volte face of yours is very amusing.

BTW, I turned up something interesting in Jane's Defense; apparently Spain, despite your claim that only France and the UK appear to want an independent defense outside the US, has been arming significantly over the past twenty years, and appears to be ready to start making its presence known, as it pours money into its defence structures.

[Dan]

Now this is a great quote:

Some things are true even if George Bush believes them.

[Will Spencer]

I don't want to be a European. My ancestors left Europe for a reason -- to get away from those people.

I don't want the EU or the UN telling me how to run my life or telling us how to run our country.

That's just what we need, representatives from the bloody third world telling us how a country should be run.

Is Libya still chairing the U.N. Human Rights committee?

[Andrew]

JB

Don't really care if the US is in NATO or not. Don't care to pay for whatever Europe believes to be its defense needs. (Wouldn't-- if I was a European-- expect them to be very considerable).

Don't think the US should expect European nations (seperately or collectively) to join us in any military operations...ad hoc coaliions are fine, of course.

I would never-- ever-- cede any authority over anything about the conduct of America's foreign affairs to other nations, or any multinational institutions.

Is all that clear-- or does this confuse you?

Multinational institutions and long-standing alliances made sone sense during the Cold War. They don't anymore.

If I was a European (pf any nationality) I would not wish my country, or community to spend any significant money on defense. The US will always rescue Europe, in the unlikely event they need rescuing.

[anon]

Maybe I'm ignorant, but I can't understand how these writers can be so dismissive of Iraq's WMD threat. Given that a less-than-vial's-worth of anthrax was either smuggled into the U.S. or smuggled out of a U.S. lab and released via the Postal system, and we still don't know who did it, how can Saddam's possible possession of such vials (or vials of similarly harmful substances) not be a threat to the U.S.?

Sure, one might argue that "he would likely not have used them against us; it would not have been in his self-interest". That's a legitimate debating point, although he seemed a singularly poor judge of self-interest.

But to say his WMD's were a falsely-hyped threat seems to me to be either assuming:

a. He did not have them, or
b. He had them but would certainly not use them against us

Given the pre-war National Intelligence Estimate, (a) was not tenable, and I don't see that (b) was tenable either.

Ipso facto, Tom Friedman's "stated reason for the war", which he seems to believe was and still is invalid, was and still is in fact valid.

Where have I gone wrong in this thinking?