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I disagree with his first sentence: WMD were the primary reason we went to war. We knew Saddam had them in 1998, and in 2002 they were unaccounted for, and Saddam was refusing to give any account for them. Whether we have found them or not ex post is therefore irrelevent since ex ante we had strong reason to believe he had them given the information available to us at the time.

That being said, I think the rest of the article is very good.

Second, the Shi’as in the southern third, the country’s plurality, should be allowed to build an autonomous Allahocratic polity—if that is indeed what they long for—and to enjoy the fruits of their own region’s oil wealth. At the same time they should be made aware of the price to be paid—including U.S.-sanctioned re-imposition of Sunni dominance—if Basra’s links with Tehran become too close for America’s comfort.

IOW, create another oil-rich wahabi-ruled state, and warn them to "be good, or else."

Great article about the debate amongst the think tanks and getting a glimpse had how alien the AEI crowd sounded.

As to your post, if by 'WE' you mean the Clinton CIA reported that their were WMDs in 1998, then yes they did. That still does not mean he had them. There was clearly an intelligence failure; that does not, ergo, make the war illegitimate or mean 'Bush lied.'

It does mean someone needs to be fired.

"....the question of the war’s true purpose remains unresolved."

Does that mean we had NO reason to go to war? The PERCEPTION that Saddam Hussein possessed WMD, was reason enough to resolve the uncertainty. And every estimate of Saddam's capabilities by intelligence services of every country in the world that was attuned to listen for the signs of activity in Iraq, concluded that Saddam either had the WMD, or the capacity to build them in the near future.

[sarcasm]The real purpose of the war was to consolidate George W. Bush's power base within the United States, and completely undermine the credibility of the Democrat party.

Highly successfully, at that.[/sarcasm]

"His concept was stated vis-à-vis Iraq but he claims that it may apply to any other polity in the region. The goal for Iraq, and the rest of the Middle East, should be democracy. The people want it; the countries need it, even without knowing it. The question is whether it is doable, and how America can make it happen. In Muravchik’s view, democratizing the Middle East is not only a moral imperative but also a demand of U.S. national security. September 11 was a quantitative watershed—thousands of Americans were killed, not dozens, as in Somalia, or hundreds, as in Beirut—but it was not a qualitatively new event. Assorted Arab and/or Islamic terrorists had been killing Americans for years, and 9-11 merely raised the benchmark. The next stage may be to kill Americans not by thousands but by tens or hundreds of thousands, but the underlying threat is the same. It is rooted in the “sick political culture” of the Middle East, delusional, tyrannical, and violent. It is diseased, but it can be cured by democracy."

Complete blather. The 'culture' is a cancer that led directly to 9/11. It is far beyond cure--except for the extreme one of making it go away, just as one treats a tumor.

Eventually, as I keep saying, we shall have to 'deal' with Islam everywhere. I would not have chosen Iraq as the place to start. Probably Saudi Arabia, Syria or Iran.

The cancer must be excised--if America is to exist 20 years from now.

--Boris