There’s a heated discussion going on in the comments of this post of James Joyner’s at OTB on the troubling situation in Iraq post-U. S. withdrawal. I find the discussion pretty frustrating and will air my grievances here rather than in the comments section of the post itself (after all ’tis the season!) since the most it will accomplish over there is to expose myself to unfair, unwarranted, unsupported, and, frankly, idiotic criticism.
The consensus of the commenters appears to be that the invasion of Iraq was a mistake; they claim to always have held that view. Where the heck were they in 2003 and 2004? Frankly, I believe they’re lying. If they held that position they sure held their tongues about it.
Early in the life of this blog I posted a taxonomy of positions held by various bloggers on the invasion of Iraq and the conduct of the war on terror, generally. The position held by top mainstream partisan Democratic bloggers and pundits, e.g. Kevin Drum, Matt Yglesias, Josh Marshall, Peter Beinart, and many, many others was that they supported the invasion of Iraq. That was also the position staked out by every Senate Democrat who had aspirations to run for the presidency in 2004. By 2004 that view had already begun to fracture into various protestations of injured innocence that took several forms, e.g. Bush lied, the conduct of the war was incompetent, etc.
To repeat my own view as I have done many, many times: I opposed the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan because (among other reasons) I did not believe that there was any way to conclude the campaigns in a manner favorable to the United States without lengthy occupations (lengthy = a generation or multiple generations) and the American people would not tolerate the consequences of those occupations.
Why can’t the folks who supported the invasions and now claim to have opposed them from the start or supported a competent occupation (if such a thing could exist) or some other pretext just admit they were wrong? Maybe it’s because the human species is not a rational animal but a rationalizing animal.
I supported the invasion of Iraq, though in slight mitigation I opposed the previous effort to free Kuwait and found myself opining that going backwards not being an option, we were forced to go forwards. [Nod to the counterfactual discussion about Ron Paul and avoidance of the Civil War, knowing what I know now, I think we should have taken out Saddam in ’90. Is that a fair position to take?]
Largely though I’m unrepentant, with some sense that I might have sinned so I won’t broadcast it by entering such a discussion at OTB. I find history fascinating enough not to try to figure out what should have happened in retrospect, given what we know now. Those choices are generally not as easy for the past to make as the future would pretend. It doesn’t lead to understanding, it more often leads to false pride.
Right now, I’m saddened by the prospect that some of the worst predictions of neocons and [Jeffersonians?] may bear out, though their solutions differ completely. I’ve always held to the view that life and societies will muddle through their difficulties for the most part, never pretty and never exacting, but the worst rarely happens.
BTW/ Josh Marshall is a strange animal; one of the first bloggers I recall reading regularly. He was certainly rattling the liberal war hawk saber, but I believe he changed positions unexpectedly and without explanation just before the war. It was like a brain transplant, and I’m not sure he’s ever explained the switch other than with some small reference later to having received some foreknowledge that the Bush administration would screw this up. I stopped reading him after this since I thought he had “sinned” as a blogger; a blogger can be belicose or pacifistic, rigid or inconsistent, but I think he abandoned the “diary” notion of a blog that makes the medium so powerful.
Doubleplusgood duckspeak. The party bigwigs were re-positioning themselves.
I think it’s fair but I also think that it would have fractured the coalition. Extremely limited war with extremely constrained objectives were the terms our allies set for their support, such as it was. Just for the record I opposed Gulf War I as well for a complex of reasons. Why fight the Iraqis to support the Emir of Kuwait? That’s like going up against Al Capone in defense of Johnny Torrio.
Supported Afghanistan, opposed Iraq. Was not blogging or reading blogs in 2003. Dropped most of my objections to the Iraqi invasion on principle after the Powell speech. Never thought he would lie. Went back to opposing it on its structure when Shinseki’s recommendations, based on the Mattis war games, was rejected. Having been deployed to the Middle East and having had a long term interest in the area, I thought Rumsfeld was full of s**t. They really hate each other over there. Would it have made a difference if we had adequate police forces, did not disband the military, did not disband the political structure and did not flood the area with political acolytes? Who knows.
Steve
[A]fter all ’tis the season!
A Fesitvus for the rest of us!
Supported the effort in Afghanistan, though I would have preferred it been done differently. (I supported more killing and less nation-building.) Supported Iraq, would have preferred it been done differently. (Faster killing early, then put in our son-of-a-bitch to run the place, get mostly out. That’s what client regimes are for.)
What I found funny at the time, and since, is that you can’t really support an international community without a police force. The international order (such as it is) means nothing if it will not enforce its own sanctions and beliefs, and Hussein’s Iraq was clearly a violator of that order. (The Taliban’s Afghanistan was another violator, but pre-9/11 no one really gave a shit. We’re finally reaching a point where no one gives a shit now, either.) Refusing to support military action (of some sort) against Iraq made all of those “community of nations” shitheads complete hypocrits.
Dave,
You whine about unsubstantiated criticism aimed at you and then in the very next paragraph accuse your critics of being lying with zero proof?
I supported Afghanistan and Iraq. The first wholeheartedly, the second (as I’ve said many times) 51/49. I assumed we were doing Japan 1945 — blow things up, write them a constitution, put a gun to their heads and say “sign here.”
I was very nervous after Shinseki but assumed — that unfortunate word again — that no one could conceivably be dumb enough to think we could do it on the cheap. The looting at the museum was the point when I realized that yes, someone could be that stupid.
What bothers me most about my performance on this issue is that 51/49 thing. What the hell was I doing supporting a war on a 1% margin? You pick restaurants or choose a car on the basis of 51/49, you don’t support sending soldiers in harm’s way. You don’t vote to create orphans on 1%.
And yeah, I’ve notice a steady increase in the percentage of people who “Tod me so.” Soon it will be like trying to find a baby boomer who supported the war in Vietnam.
Well, lying suggests they’re intentionally deceptive. I think it’s more likely they don’t realize their positions changed. Misremembering the past in accordance with one’s present circumstances and biases is a well established attribute of human psychology. It seems particularly acute among the pundit class. It’s one of the reasons I save most of the comments I post on blogs – I can go back and find myself surprised at some of the dumb things I used to think. So, I dunno, I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt regarding intentions – at least I try (I admit I often fail).
As far as Iraq goes, I thought we’d be fighting them sooner or later and I wasn’t too bothered that it turned out to be sooner. I would have preferred to wait for Saddam to miscalculate and provide a clearer cassus belli (something I think was inevitable). So the question for me was more one of timing and justification since I believed (and still do believe) that we were destined for another war in Iraq as long as Saddam was in power.
In hindsight I missed the strategic confusion inside the administration which is what ultimately screwed the post-war planning. I was only partially aware of Iraq’s internal divisions prior to the war – which was a pretty big oversight – but again, Iraq was outside my area of responsibility since I was focused on Afghanistan at the time. Looking forward I don’t things look good for Iraq. In general I agree with Pat Lang’s analysis.
Icepick,
Part of the strategic confusion in the WH was due to the fact that Rummy wanted to do just as you say – install a client and GTFO quickly. That’s one reason he ordered the military not to plan for a long occupation. That guy was supposed to be Chalabi and his cronies, but that option was rejected by the shia power-brokers in Iraq. The US didn’t really have a plan B.
Where the heck were they in 2003 and 2004?
Some, like as not, were not commenting on blogs. I opposed both wars, but I didn’t start leaving comments on any blogs until 2005.
I understand what you’re saying about, er, foul-weather opposers (?), but IIRC something like 30% of Americans opposed the war at the outset, and since then internet participation has increased significantly. So at least some of them probably are not lying.
I think that Andy’s got it right (which is what I was trying to imply in the closing sentence of my post). I also think think that OJ Simpson believes there’s a real killer out there somewhere and Bill Clinton believes he didn’t have sex with that woman. And that the French think all of their grandfathers were in the Resistance and the Germans think that very few Germans actually were Nazis or supported them.
Haha, yet another wingnut nepotism hire covers the Republicans in feces.
The entire sewer system of right wing punditry is a tremendous argument for free markets over the corrosive effect of inherited wealth and power.
The irony, it burns.
What the hell was I doing supporting a war on a 1% margin? You pick restaurants or choose a car on the basis of 51/49, you don’t support sending soldiers in harm’s way. You don’t vote to create orphans on 1%.
You’re not thinking about this correctly. It wasn’t “Peace, or War!” It was continued sanctions and slow death for thousands and thousands of Iraqis while Saddam continued to sit in power, topple him by force (we had tried other methods without success for 12 years), or lift all sanctions and let Saddam go back to doing whatever whenever. The first option was falling apart as the French and Russians had sold out to Saddam, and the Chinese probably would have supported the end of sanctions as well.
The first option was increasingly untenable, the second option was bad, and the third option was worse.
As for the odds, you bet the way you thought the odds laid best. IOf you went the other way you are making a decsions that you believe is bad most of the time. That’s not good either.
And even if the odds were 9,999,999 to 1, occassionally the 1 will hit. You don’t curse yourself for betting the favorite in that situation.
It’s why I love this blog: I am regularly forced to think. Second time this week.