This article doesn't defend the Iraq War. -- it questions the validity of any other opinions. It also questions the conservatism of those of us who don't share the neo-Wilsonian worldview that lost at the polls on Nov. 7.
I have read about Kristinn for years now (we've never met), and I admire his activism. (Remember "FReep the Creep?") I'd just ask him and you and all the other "hawks" here (it's not a pejorative term, but if you don't like it, substitute something else) to give a fair look at what's wrong in Iraq, willing to admit if everything isn't a-ok.
The election's over, so it's not a political matter now, it's ok to look at what's wrong there and what we can do to salvage the situation. Because I'm sorry, but unless "winning" means "hopelessly stuck in-country because we've made ourselves the only thing preventing a civil war from breaking out and the terrorists from taking over," then we're not winning.
He knows far more than you about what's going on there (as does anyone who has been there).
As for the 'hopelessness' - that is your own personal weakness speaking in buckling to the pressure of the anti-American MSM. There is nothing 'hopeless' about a war that we are winning.
The fact that the terrorists are fighting so hard in Iraq is an indicator of its importance and a call to be even more resolved, not a symbol of its failure and an excuse to run away from it.
All I know is that if I keep reading this kind of trashing of our mission, then I will no longer be at home on FR.