Bill Buckley, you and I know the war was a mistake

The Hill ^ | June 28, 04 | Josh Marshall

[churchillbuff]

“With the benefit of minute hindsight, Saddam Hussein wasn’t the kind of extra-territorial menace that was assumed by the administration one year ago. If I knew then what I know now about what kind of situation we would be in, I would have opposed the war.”

Those words are William F. Buckley’s, from an article in yesterday’s New York Times marking Buckley’s decision to relinquish control of the National Review, the flagship journal of the conservative movement he founded 50 years ago.

Also out on the newsstands now, in The Atlantic Monthly, is an essay Buckley wrote describing his decision to give up sailing after a lifetime covering the world’s oceans and writing about it.

Mortality is the backdrop of both decisions, as the 78-year-old Buckley explains. In the Atlantic essay he describes his decision to abandon the sea as one of assessing whether “the ratio of pleasure to effort [is] holding its own [in sailing]? Or is effort creeping up, pleasure down? … deciding that the time has come to [give up sailing] and forfeit all that is not lightly done … brings to mind the step yet ahead, which is giving up life itself.”

There is certainly no shortage today of people saying the Iraq venture was wrongheaded. But Bill Buckley is Bill Buckley. And perhaps it is uniquely possible for a man at the summit or the sunset of life — choose your metaphor — to state so crisply and precisely what a clear majority of the American public has already decided (54 percent according to the latest Gallup poll): that the president’s Iraq venture was a mistake.

So with the formal end of the occupation now behind us, let’s take stock of the arguments for war and see whether any of them any longer hold up.

• The threat of weapons of mass destruction (WMD).

To the best of our knowledge, the Hussein regime had no stockpiles of WMD on the eve of the war nor any ongoing programs to create them. An article this week in the Financial Times claims that Iraq really was trying to buy uranium from Niger despite all the evidence to the contrary. But new “evidence” appears merely to be unsubstantiated raw intelligence that was wisely discounted by our intelligence agencies at the time.

Advocates of the war still claim that Saddam had “WMD programs.” But they can do so only by using a comically elastic definition of “program” that never would have passed the laugh test if attempted prior to the war.

• The Iraq-al Qaeda link.

To the best of our knowledge, the Hussein regime had no meaningful — or as the recent Sept. 11 Commission staff report put it, “collaborative” — relationship with al Qaeda. In this case too, there’s still a “debate.” Every couple of months we hear of a new finding that someone who may have had a tie to Saddam may have met with someone connected to al Qaeda.

But as in the case of WMD, it’s really mock debate, more of a word game than a serious, open question, and a rather baroque one at that. Mostly, it’s not an evidentiary search but an exercise in finding out whether a few random meetings can be rhetorically leveraged into a “relationship.” If it can, supposedly, a rationale for war is thus salvaged.

The humanitarian argument for the war remains potent — in as much as Saddam’s regime was ruthlessly repressive. But in itself this never would have been an adequate argument to drive the American people to war — and, not surprisingly, the administration never made much of it before its other rationales fell apart.

The broader aim of stimulating a liberalizing and democratizing trend in the Middle East remains an open question — but largely because it rests on unknowables about the future rather than facts that can be proved or disproved about the past. From the vantage point of today, there seems little doubt that the war was destabilizing in the short run or that it has strengthened the hands of radicals in countries like Iran and, arguably though less clearly, Saudi Arabia. The best one can say about the prospects for democracy in Iraq itself is that there are some hopeful signs, but the overall outlook seems extremely iffy.

Surveying the whole political landscape, it is clear that a large factor in keeping support for the war as high as it is is the deep partisan political divide in the country, which makes opposing the war tantamount to opposing its author, President Bush, a step most Republicans simply aren’t willing to take.

At a certain point, for many, conflicts become self-justifying. We fight our enemies because our enemies are fighting us, quite apart from whether we should have gotten ourselves into the quarrel in the first place.

But picking apart the reasons why we got into Iraq in the first place and comparing what the administration said in 2002 with what we know in 2004, it is increasingly difficult not to conclude, as a majority of the American public and that founding father of modern conservatism have now concluded, that the whole enterprise was a mistake.

[Felis_irritable]

OK, here's where the commitment meets the assertion: the writer mentions WMDs and the Iraq-al Qaeda link. The first phrase in his "demolition" of both is "To the best of our knowledge..."

Where I come from, we call those "weasel words," and they are used by those who want to look back and say "But I didn't ABSOLUTELY POSITIVELY rule out (fill in the blank)."

But then I'm from the provinces, and not too sophisticated.

[don-o]

1) there never was any WMD threat that was serious enough to warrant a U.S. invasion

Has it all gone into the burn bag?

God Almighty. The run up to the war was off the concensus - U. fu**n Nations decrees and all that...

All about enforcement of said decrees.

Give me a break.

Where is Maggie when we need her?

[ChinaThreat]

Especially when they get senile.

[foreverfree]

bump

[Stultis]

Every couple of months we hear of a new finding that someone who may have had a tie to Saddam may have met with someone connected to al Qaeda.

Uh, yeah. "Someone who may have had a tie to Saddam" includes Iraqi intelligence officials at the highest level, and "someone connect to al Qaeda" includes Osama bin Laden himself. Furthermore, "may have met" may include at a key planning meeting for the 9-11 attacks (Kuala Lampur 2000).

The naysayers are spinning madly. Historians will read this shiite with incredulity.

[churchillbuff]

I haven't seen you call for an invasion of Cuba, but that doesn't make you pro-Castro. Likewise, just because I didn't and don't think we needed to invade the impotent dirt-poor country of Iraq doesn't make me pro-Saddam. I'm with Reagan - he beat the communists without invading the Soviet Union or Eastern Europe - and a lot of those rulers were as evil as Saddam.

[lepton]

Advocates of the war still claim that Saddam had “WMD programs.” But they can do so only by using a comically elastic definition of “program” that never would have passed the laugh test if attempted prior to the war.

We haven't found WMDs? We have found some, but more to the point: We haven't found the stockpiles that Iraq SHOWED the U.N. Where'd they go, and can you prove it?

[Captiva]

Anyone who likes baseball that much is weird.

Go NFL!

[dalebert]

Iraq was feeding terrorism. We are at war with terrorism. What are we supposed to do? Wait for another 911 or worse?

[Texasforever]

NEVER trust a conservative that wears a bow tie.

[Torie]

Excellent catch. If you are not a lawyer, you should be. Cheers.

I would still have supported the war myself, given what is known now. I am willing to take some risks for what I think is right in the core of my being. (It is a pity that Buckley has truncated his vision and scope of concern to the more mundane.) But of course my view would not have been a tenable position for the US government to take. I have to acknowledge that.

[woodyinscc]

While almost every journalist, talking head, and a certain Presidential wannabe, are thinking inside the box, President Bush is once again two steps ahead of them. Maybe they better look at Treasury Sec Snow, and how his policy's are affecting the House of Saud.

[omniscient]

Decades from now and maybe not even in his lifetime, George W. Bush will be regarded and revered as the father of modern Middle East democracy. Buckley will be remembered, along with Will, Clancy, and countless others as well-intentioned conservatives who got cold feet after it became clear that there might be a little sacrifice and effort involved.

[A Citizen Reporter]

"Actually, Hollywood supported this war - until recently, anyway. At Academy Awards last year, they booed Michael Moore when he spoke against the war"

Other than this so-called example, can you provide any other shred of evidence for your assertion that "Hollywood supported this war"?

[Ramius]

No, he supported it until two things became clear to him: 1) there never was any WMD threat that was serious enough to warrant a U.S. invasion; and 2) the administration's efforts in waging the war revealed an utter lack of competence in preparing for the occupation of Iraq.

In fact, now that I think about Point #2 . . . I believe he made this comment somewhere around the first anniversary of President Bush's idiotic performance on the deck of the aircraft carrier.

Now this is just plain silly. Are you *really* ready to pronounce that Iraq would never have been a threat to the U.S. vis-a-vis WMD??? If you are really making that statement then I guess we have little to discuss because it would appear that we live on different planets.

Now... with regard to the actual planning for the war... if taking down a whole country in three weeks with the fewest casualties on *both* sides that has ever occurred in the history of warfare isn't good enough for you... then maybe you need to adjust your powerpoint slides a little. Perhaps then, you could point me to a military campaign in the history of the world that has accomplished more in less time with fewer casualties?

[Captiva]

What should be American policy toward despots who give santuary to those who murder American citizens?

Death? or additional parking surfaces?

[CyberCowboy777]

Thankfully Bill's time has passed and a new generation is in charge.


I'll thank him for the '80s, curse him for the '60s and '70s and forget all about him in a week.

[Deb]

For some unknown reason, the great anti-Communists like Buckley, Bob Novak, Pat Buchanan and John Mclaughlin are against the war. I don't know if they don't perceive radical Islam as the threat Marxism was/is or if there is a teeny, tiny bit of anti-Israeli sentiment going on. It's very odd.

Buckley is a total shock, but then, his pro-drug legalization stance is a head-rubber too.

[Merdoug]

You're talking to the wall. The Bsuhbots see nothing but perfection.
Bush let's in illegals,...
Bushbots: We have always been a Nation of immigrants. They do the jobs Americans won't do,...
Bush takes away our freedoms with the "patriot" act,...
Bushbots: It's for our own good! Remember 9/11,..Remember 9/11,...Remember 9/11,...Remember 9/11,...
Bush allows corporations to move overseas and still sell to America with no penalities,...
Bushbots: Strong super-companies are GOOD for America. There's PLENTY of jobs out there,...TONS of jobs,..REALLY,...
Bush takes us into a war with a country which was NO THREAT to us,...
Bushbots: It was for the (Iraqi)CHILDREN,...WMD? What WMD? We never said no such thing,..
Bushbots are just like the democrats with clinton: they will destroy their conservative values to support him; actually losing what it meant to be a conservative to get him elected.
Thankfully, more and more people are finally starting to see the truth about this "compassionate" conservative.

[lepton]

Hey you skipped the primary reason for resuming invading Iraq: Hussein refused - in a massive way - to adhere to the conditions of the cease-fire and demonstrated himself immune to diplomacy. After 1994, there is no excuse for not having removed Hussein from power.

Libyas capitulation alone justified the war.