Christopher Hitchens wrote a great piece in Slate this week on how the war in Iraq could of gone. His most important contribution is not an argument on why the war was justified, but a list of the detractor’s impact. And like most things I read, it triggered a rant.
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But what did the president get instead? The threat of unilateral veto from Paris, Moscow, and Beijing. Private assurances to Saddam Hussein from members of the U.N. Security Council. Pharisaic fatuities from the United Nations’ secretary-general, who had never had a single problem wheeling and dealing with Baghdad. The refusal to reappoint Rolf Ekeus—the only serious man in the U.N. inspectorate—to the job of invigilation. A tirade of opprobrium, accusing Bush of everything from an oil grab to a vendetta on behalf of his father to a secret subordination to a Jewish cabal. Platforms set up in major cities so that crowds could be harangued by hardened supporters of Milosevic and Saddam, some of them paid out of the oil-for-food bordello.
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I don’t think anyone would argue that the current situation is unacceptable, that the Bush administration failed miserably, or that the mission is even close to being accomplished. Nevertheless, as far as the blame for all that goes, it’s not so cut and dried. Perhaps the current opposition has a short memory, but I recall protestors literally protecting enemy targets. Operation Human Shield? Sean Penn meeting with Saddam weeks before the invasion? Let’s not rewrite history here folks. (more…)
