Buckley isn't as resistant to facts as a lot of people are. He's willing to look at evidence and change his mind if it tells him that his original assumptions were wrong. He has seen that the promises and predictions of the Iraq invasion supporters have not come true - but rather the opposite. The person who has been proved right is John Paul II, who opposed the invasion from the beginning. Blessed be his name.
I don't believe it would have been wise to leave Hussein in power. He hated our gutts and would have done just about anything to aid someone who wanted to do us harm.
Beyond that, his treatment of his own people and his continuing threat to other nations in the region made him unacceptable.
He was still causing problems on the no fly zone front. He was still moving his troops in threatening manners. Within approximately a year before he was removed, he had troops move close to the Saudi Border.
He has been removed. The Taliban and Al Qaeda have lost a lot of their leaders and foot soldiers. Iraq is stabalizing. Iraqis are being trained to take over their own defense and by all accounts, we're looking at significant reductions in our troops presense by the end of 2006 or early 2007.
As I said, there was a time when this mosque attack would have caused perhaps tens of thosands their lives. A few hundred have been killed. The nation has not melted down. Instead prominent Imams have asked for calm and are holding Sunni and Shur events to decry the violence and mourn over the loss.
This is a direct slap in the face of the terrorists. Even this didn't cause the nation to slip into civil war.
The general Iraqi is damned tired of the terrorists IMO.
I do not agree with Buckley's assessment. The peace in Iraq may never reach our level of our peace, but the state is solidifying and not in a hostile manner to the U.S. and our interests. I see that as good.