by Matt Barr

The third anniversary of the Iraq invasion non-meme

It's not exactly a meme, but it's worth linking to and participating. Reason asked "a wide range of libertarian, conservative, and freedom-minded journalists and academics to assess the war, the occupation, and how their views have or have not changed." Since I'm comfortable being described as any of libertarian, conservative or freedom-minded, I've been a sorta-journalist, and since this is all academic, I thought this would be a good way to take stock.

1. Did you support the invasion of Iraq?

Yes. I would have supported it in 1998, when regime change in Iraq became the official policy of the United States, because Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator responisble for reprehensible crimes, aspired to conquer the region, flouted the terms of his Gulf War surrender and was, everybody serious believed, pursuing and probably accumulating weapons of mass destruction.

I wouldn't have passed up the opportunity to flame Bill Clinton for starting a war without there being an appreciable threat to America, because I liked flaming Bill Clinton. But I frankly would have sounded like an idiot if Saddam had been toppled as easily as he was in 2003 and democracy was as abloom and American deaths as few as they are today. (I'm getting ahead of myself, though.)

I supported the invasion of Iraq three years ago for the reasons above plus the post-September 11, now-widely-mocked reality that brutal, criminal, murderous dictators aspiring to conquer regions, flouting international authority and accumulating WMD pose a serious threat to the United States.

There are good reasons not to make too much of the physical location (to be almost impossibly clinical) of the September 11 disaster -- the same number of Americans, and certainly innocent people, could have been killed elsewhere than within our borders. But I think it's equally important not to be too... clinical. Pearl Harbor let us know that we could be attacked at home, for the first time since 1812. September 11 taught us the same lesson, with Pearl Harbor itself as the new baseline. We've done ourselves and our children a service by taking that lesson to heart sooner than later.

2. Have you changed your position?

No. I left "unless it was going to be hard" out of my first answer for a reason.

It seems to me too that there are all sorts of geopolitical perks: Dealing with the next criminal, murderous regime to aspire to weapons of mass destruction will be a lot easier from next door, and in a related vein, we can wean ourselves off dependence on the execrable Saudis in that regard. Every day a coalition Sunni-Shiite-Kurd government doesn't succumb to a Dark Ages fundamentalist theocracy is one step toward change in other oppresive regimes in the area. And, it's better to have a friend than an enemy in the Middle East for all sorts of reasons we haven't had to think of yet.

With regard to changing minds, I have to wonder. I understand if you supported the invasion because there were WMDs, and we've found no WMDs and by all accounts Saddam exaggerated his capacity, even to his top advisers. I understand if you supported it based on a direct, linear connection between specific al Qaeda jihadists and the Saddam government in planning and executing September 11, which we know didn't exist. But to change your mind because it's three years on and you're getting impatient? Because Iraq doesn't have a government as stable as Canada's yet? That I don't understand.

And more broadly, I don't understand what I am sure are good faith impulses to "bring the troops home" to remove them from harm's way. Our military is entirely volunteer, and 100 percent populated by adults. They don't need you or me to decide they need to be brought home and kept someplace safe. Being against the continued deployment of a conscripted force in Vietnam made sense on this level. This doesn't.

3. What should the U.S. do in Iraq now?

I haven't got the expertise to comment at the tactical level, but I think it's obvious that if we'd withdrawn, say, when Rep. Murtha (whom I defended from the most hateful attacks against him) proposed we do, the country would be in irredeemable chaos, starting at the latest after the destruction of the Samarra shrine, which probably would have taken place earlier.

So it's important to err on the side of security for the country and resist emotional calls to disengage or reduce our presence. Easy for me to say, sure, but that's the point: It's easy for anybody to say anything, not so easy to leave Iraq and its newly-free citizens in a position to govern and defend themselves.

Leaving before reasonable observers can agree we've been successful would be catastrophic to future diplomacy, too. If all anyone has to do is wait us out till we lose our nerve, we can't hope for anything constructive or positive happening on our behalf or from our efforts in the region or anywhere else.

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