Posted on 06/29/2004 7:00:20 PM PDT by 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.
And what are your other nics,when you aren't using this one?
And there wasn't a fifth columner like you Chamerbalinbuff or in the press back then.
*You would be ill advised to pester my good friend nopardons. Doing so, directly implies pestering me, and a sharp response*
Gee, Ivan, that sure has *me* TERRIFIED beyond belief, your threat of a "sharp response" and all...I'm trembling right now...what ever will I do? ...(snicker)...
Ha, ha...what a deal...absolutely rib-tickling hilarious...
Whew what kind of drugs are you smoking.
*And what are your other nics,when you aren't using this one?*
...(snicker)...
"A coward judges all he sees by what he is."
--Stephen King
Be made a fool of. But I can see it will take some time for it to sink in that you are indeed a fool. Your arrogant and pretentious tone in dealing with myself and nopardons is certainly indicative however, that I am dealing with hardly a "jovial cad" but a garden variety idiot.
Ivan
Oh,so that it explains YOU,then;I see. :-)
Ha, ha...yep, go right on believing that...just too, TOO, funny...
Really, do you believe this is a clever reply? Old boy, you obviously can't play in this league. Really, if this is the kind of drivel you deal in, your "talents", such as they are, would be better appreciated over at DU.
I halfway wonder if you are a closet liberal - the brain dead attacks, the brain dead replies, the brain dead behaviour, all you need is the brain dead politics to go with it.
Ivan
"As a Generation X conservative (I ain't no neo-con!), Bill Buckley has never had any relevancy to my positions."
We all owe William F. Buckley for having the courage to stand athwart history and say, "Stop." He kept the embers glowing until Generation X made it out of diapers. Without Buckley, we might already have laws banning your positions.
That said, I've been saying since before the first Gulf War that we needed to take the war to Islam by going over there and kicking the crap out of somebody. Egypt, Syria, Lybia, don't much care.
I didn't think America would find the juevos to do it, though. Glad I was wrong.
Dollars to doughnuts,he's a LePer,which is worse than a DUer,Ivan.
Uh-huh...whatever you say...man-oh-man, does that ever wound me to the quick! I repent! ...(snicker)...
Think whatever you want--the posts speak for themselves. As does the questionable company you keep...ha, ha...
Yes,you're 100% correct. Great post! :-)
Keep going, old boy, you really do look the fool. A grinning idiot to be sure, but an idiot nonetheless.
Ivan
Why threaten him with a "sharp reply," when a cold drink of water and an original thought would kill him?
Threaten him with that.
Ha, ha...well, Cowboy, I've got to say you got me there, pardner! I look soooo much like the "fool" that you keep hitting the "reply" button, oddly enough...
LOL...absolutely hilarious...
You obviously think that by saying you're laughing that this constitutes "winning". You have not come up with a single compelling reply to anything I've said - all you can do is play the role of the giggling moron. Perhaps I should have known better than to get into a battle of wits with someone so obviously unable to defend themselves.
However, it's my pleasure to kick you to the kerb nonetheless.
Ivan
*However, it's my pleasure to kick you to the kerb nonetheless*
Hilarious...so much typing on your part, and so little content...you win the "Keyboard Cotton Candy Award" for the month, in my estimation...LOL. Just too, TOO, funny...
On the contrary, the fact that you have to keep repeating the same thing over and over means your frustration is showing, old boy. As for "Keyboard Cotton Candy" - my word, if my comments are cotton candy, what does that make your drooling nonsense?
Ivan
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