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.
Why don't you quit posting lies on Free Republic?
Why don't you respond to who it is in the administration who told us that it would be a cakewalk? Ah, can't do it because it didn't happen.
Why don't you tell us that our troops weren't greeted as liberators with flowers and hugs? Ah, can't do it because we were greeted as liberators by the regular Iraqi citizen.
You want to align yourself with Tom Clancy, an author, and some retired generals who haven't seen a piece of intelligence, human or otherwise, in years, as opposed to the world's intelligence agencies who ALL said that Iraq had WMD, then be my guest.
You want to disassociate yourself from Tony Blair and the president you pretend to support and associate instead with authors and retired people who know little to NOTHING, be my guest.
But every time you tell a lie on Free Republic, which is pretty much as often as you post from what I can tell, then you will be called on it.
With your contribution I could have it winging on its way to them next week.
in it longer than is needed for a decent orderly extrication.
TRANSLATION:
You want us to cut and run just like the worst Democrats. To show the Islamics we have no spine. GWBush and Don Rumsfeld and the rest are the better judges how when to extricate. Not hysterics such as you.
I would say we are doing a good job of leaving on our own timetable. Not Al Qaeda's time table which is the same as yours. Same as the Democrats
Get out of here and go to DU. You will find a fantastic reception for your garbage.
If things go well, there will be no extrication. We will be there for the next 50 years. We are still in Japan, S.Korea and Germany. And we are there for a reason. We should never have left Viet Nam, either.
Good post but I think "buff" isn't up for that. He would much rather agitate against us removing Saddam Hussein.
Enlightening, isn't it?
It will really s--k to be me if Kerry wins because of fools who urged Bush into a disastrous invasion of Iraq. Also, please stop implying that being opposed to this invasion makes one "anti-Israel." You sound like Congressman Moran and Sen. Foghorn of South Carolina, who said that we went to war for Israel. Are you a secret anti-semite?
I'm asking Hill to declare whether he believes in supporting the troops in Afghanistan. Does he support the war in Afghanistan?
Your post wasn't directed to me, but I would like to contribute. How do I go about it?
I suppose you're trying to get me banned, showing what seems to be a goose-step mentality that will not abide disagreement with the party line.
Be back in a bit.
I'll send a care package to American troops ANYWHERE, ANYTIME. Just because I think they shouldn't have been sent to Iraq doesn't mean I don't love and respect and pray for them.
Firing Line, while entertaining, was little more than a sandbox for the pampered class of intellectuals. Rarely did the insights of a Muggeridge or F.A. Schaeffer get an airing on the show.
Just because W.F. Buckley decides to play turncoat in the midst of an election year bothers me not at all. Anyone who speaks out against Bush's efforts in the war in terrorism is a leftist and a coward. I am weary of hearing the weaklings whine from the comfort of their armchairs when our soldiers are standing guard for us all.
I suppose you're trying to get me banned,
I would love to see you banned! You are over the top. Go to DU. You would fit in much better!
You say you voted Republican for 40 years. Real conservatives don't try to sabotage a war effort by a Republican President. You spread defeatism and lack the spine to face the reality of a rough tough war. You think cut and run is the answer. I could understand this in a leftist or a Democrat but in a so called conservative this amazes me and disgusts me.
Do you even support the war in Afghanistan?
Do you support our troops?
Do you really think every single intelligence agency on the planet lied or was wrong about Iraq having WMD?
Do you understand they used them many, many, many times in the past?
Do you understand they hid things from the UN and that Saddam could have turned in a list of what he had and how he destroyed the banned stuff and we could have avoided this?
Do you truly believe Tom Clancy and some retired generals vs. Tony Blair, President Bush, Colin Powell, etc.?
What has the president done that you support?
Was there a lot of polling done during the 40s?
Amen. Thank you for that.
Freeper patriciaruth and others have done so much for our troops; my hat is off to them and their hard work!
BTW, I think Ann Coulter is a genius!
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