Beinart Apologizes
Let's start with the necessary full disclosure ... Peter Beinart is on my short list of columnists & editorialists that I will frequently have little more to add to than to say "Yeah, what he/she said."
But not this time.
Beinart basically apologizes for his own support of intervening in Iraq by claiming his desire to be more bipartisan, and something better than the partisan lefties who likely wouldn't feel the same were the war led by Gore as well as the partisan righties who already lost similar cred in Kosovo. His closure on it is this ...
In the fall of 2002, I worried about the administration's aversion to nation-building. But I assumed that, because postwar Iraq--unlike Afghanistan--was crucial to the president's reelection, his administration would listen to the people who understood postwar reconstruction best. What I didn't realize was that, for top Bush officials and their conservative allies, there were no "best practices" that spanned administrations, parties, or nations. There was just their way and their opponents' way. And, if their way placed ideology above expertise, that was fine, because, despite all its denials, the other side did, too.For conservatives, the right lesson of Iraq is that, if you apply a loyalty test to this country's best sources of knowledge--the academy, the press, and the government itself--you'll lose the war on terrorism through sheer ignorance. For liberals, the lesson is to see conservatives as they are, not as you'd like them to be. I'll try to remember it next time.
In the fall of 2002, I too worried about the administration's aversion to nation-building. I don't know that I had as much hope as Beinart had that the problem I saw would just magically right itself, but I felt there would be some sensible undertaking that would be a bit more than creating a WPA style jobs program combined with a security force that seems to have gone on thus far. To date, about the only real premise George W. Bush has made towards rebuilding Iraq is that on June 30, its not our problem. While we would all no doubt like to believe that, I fail to see that happening. Is Afghanistan no longer our problem to deal with? Why would Iraq be any less?
To me, this wasn't about seeing conservatives as I wanted to see them, or even seeing them as they were. If a man robs a bank and says he has a gun in his jacket, you don't ask to see the gun do you? My point? Hussein wanted us to believe he was the madman with the gun. His scientists may have duped him or lied to him or told him what he wanted to hear to believe that he, indeed, had a gun. We called his bluff. It was, to me, about seeing the situation as whether or not you'd accept Bush's reassertion of previously stated "facts" about WMD programs versus Hussein's reassertion that he did not.
I'll state a bit more clearly that I believe there HAS to be, in any administration, a certain number of cards that even the most partisan of warriors has to place on the table as accepting some credibility. I didn't vote for George W. Bush in 1994, 1998, or 2000 ... and I damn sure won't be voting for him in 2004. But one of those cards I place down for any President will be that when we are under attack, that I have some semblence of faith that the President will do what he deems necessary to best enact a defense of this nation. If I cannot accept that ... if Republicans could not accept that of Bill Clinton, Al Gore, or John Kerry ... then I think there's just something intractably wrong with you. Say what you want in the name of partisan bickering, but when your home is on fire, you don't ask if the fire cheif is a member of your party. If you get held up, you don't ask if the mayor or police cheif are "ok on abortion." And when planes ramming into your nation's landmark buildings announce that the evil forces of anti-Americanism have landed on our shores to claim war ... you'd best place a little faith in the person in charge.
Clearly, Bush has screwed up more than an insignificant amount in this war. And it warrants suggestion that the next time he asks us to take a leap of faith with him that nation A's situation is parallel to the problem we have with terrorist group B and henceforth must be waged war with ... its safe to say that card is no longer on the table. Next time around, the facts will clearly have to be more self-evident and Bush has lost all credibility of being taken at his word alone. That's the price he paid.
But these things happen in realtime, not in hindsight.
In hindsight, should we have gone into Iraq?
Yes.
But we also should have held the administration's feet to the fire on a postwar plan and found our own voice on questioning the aspects of that war that were worth raising (and in some cases, were raised, but rarely echoed). To say that Iraq is a failure and that failure is borne completely on Bush is incorrect. It is a failing on the part of many within both parties. There are good guys, of course. Naturally, I'll do the obligatory praise of one Joe Lieberman, who had more to offer on rebuilding Iraq before George Bush even took office.
While there's a lot to be frustrated with and there's a lot to be irate with this administration with, I'm not entirely sure there's enough to warrant apologizing for. Sorry Peter ... you're on your own for this one.
ADD-ON: ... and for once, I'm in full agreement with Paul Berman (a first!). Read the whole damn thing, and highlight this graf:
Here is the challenge: to rage at Saddam and other enemies, and, at the same time, to rage in a somewhat different register at Bush, and to keep those two responses in proper proportion to one another. That can be a difficult thing to do, requiring emotional balance, maturity, and analytic clarity--a huge effort.
Great stuff ...