If I had known then what we know now, I might not have supported the war against Iraq.
Whoa, now.
What do you "know" now?
As I recall--I admit that my memory may be wrong--you were always in line with Pollack's arguments, which were consistently premised on WMD and not very much on his passing on of WMD to terrorists. Recall that the consensus was that Saddam was secular and didn't want anything to do with the IslamoWacos.
And that was the major thrust of the arguments in favor of the war, that Saddam had WMD and could not be trusted not to pass them on to terrorists.
Not at all. Your recollection is not correct. Those are surely not the facts.
Pollack's arguments are summarized here:
What should the United States do about Iraq? Hawks are wrong to think the problem is desperately urgent or connected to terrorism, but right to see the prospect of a nuclear-armed Saddam Hussein as so worrisome that it requires drastic action. Doves are right about Iraq's not being a good candidate for an Afghan-style war, but wrong to think that inspections and deterrence alone can contain Saddam. The United States has no choice left but to invade Iraq itself and eliminate the current regime
foreignaffairs.org
Pollack never said that Saddam was an immediate threat, but a long term one. His argument was more of prophylactic one--get rid of him now, before he is an even more serious problem.
The arguments in favor of the war were always based on WMD. Nukes were at the forefront, whether or not he had them at the time. He had the means, the motivation, and the potential to get nukes and thereby change the face of the ME in a manner which would have been intolerable to the US. That was the justification as set forth by Pollack which I think you completely agreed with, as I did and still do.
You and anyone who thinks about it, didn't have to "know" whether or not Saddam had nukes in his basement. What you "know" now in this regard has not changed one iota.
This is precisely what makes the whining about Saddam not having WMD so laughable. Pollack was right about the justifications for the war. But he is also right about the poor postwar effort.
Only two people I know can say whether Pollack thinks that the poor postwar effort [which is not looking as bad as some think, after all, looking at it as a whole] would in retrospect change his original views. And they aren't talking. I suspect that his views are more or less Fiedmanesque, i.e., yes, the war was worth it and we'd better do our best to succeed, which are my views, for whatever it's worth.
You and lots of others who supported the war and are having doubts need to revisit its justifications as they are set forth by Pollack, which in my view ar the only ones that are worth a bucket of warm spit.
Nothing except the postwar scene has changed.
Is that enough to change your mind?
It's not enough to change mine. |
