I disagree with a lot of details here, as you might expect from a socially liberal secular humanist. However, I also agree with a lot, and some of it I agree with, but via a different starting place. Above all, I think people need to, well, not *stop* comparing our actual actions against the ideal, because that’s how we improve, but rather to compare US actions against the actual alternatives as they actually are.
You could say this is my error on Iraq: I should have compared actual US actions against what would have happened to the Iraqi people without the US taking action, rather than against what we could have done if we’d approached it differently. I have some responses to this that might sound like special pleading, but whether they are or aren’t probably don’t matter for the purposes of this discussion. Iraq didn’t change my view that the world is generally in a better place if dictators fear US-led intervention if they treat their people too badly, and dissidents everywhere can hope that they might get help if their cause is seen as both strong and just.
I also think a truly multipolar world is far more stable than a US-led order, if and only if the other poles are mostly pluralistic democracies. I think bringing that about is the best thing the US could do to ensure the future flourishing of humanity. In the meantime, though, there are autocratic “poles” to which we are the single greatest counterweight, whatever our flaws.
You and I have had many many conversations about the war in Iraq that started in 2003, and I don't really want to detract from your overall point, but I did feel like it might be time for an update on where I am today, a couple decades later.
Before the war, the single biggest element of my opposition to it was because I thought we needed to finish in Afghanistan first. I just didn't think we could focus on two countries at once. At that time I knew more about Afghanistan than Iraq and my skepticism toward the Iraq invasion wasn't founded on specific hurdles, just a general thought that it would be very difficult to deal with a second large country with no history of pluralist democracy.
But of course, I trained for the Iraq mission and went there, as did most of my social group and my eventual wife. In retrospect, it's clear that it could have gone very differently and those who thought it was always going to be a disaster were wrong. There were multiple points in the early days where if we'd made different choices Iraq would have turned out far better. It's very much an oversimplification on my part, but I would argue that if the old hands in the military and diplomatic corps had run the show the way they wanted rather than following the Rumsfeld/Wolfowitz path, then Iraq would probably have followed a more Bosnian path.
So in 2024 I would say that Rumsfeld at al. were wrong and effectively sabotaged the Iraq mission, but I was also wrong; we absolutely could have done both Iraq and Afghanistan. It would have cost more up front, but the overall costs would have been lower, not to mention that the international view of American power would be very different today. I think most common critiques of the Iraq war are pretty off base, but the common feeling that whatever happened showed that American power could not be trusted to handle things competently was generally correct*.
And I mourn the loss of the authority and reputation we'd had in our hyper power moment of the 1990s. It's remarkable the good it did the world.
*To be fair, if the US had done as well as I think we could have, people would still say that we'd done terribly and Bush might still have been quite unpopular by 2008, but I think over time the difference in fortunes between countries we'd invaded and reconstructed and those who had remained "sovereign" dictatorial states would still have its steady effect on the world.
I disagree with a lot of details here, as you might expect from a socially liberal secular humanist. However, I also agree with a lot, and some of it I agree with, but via a different starting place. Above all, I think people need to, well, not *stop* comparing our actual actions against the ideal, because that’s how we improve, but rather to compare US actions against the actual alternatives as they actually are.
You could say this is my error on Iraq: I should have compared actual US actions against what would have happened to the Iraqi people without the US taking action, rather than against what we could have done if we’d approached it differently. I have some responses to this that might sound like special pleading, but whether they are or aren’t probably don’t matter for the purposes of this discussion. Iraq didn’t change my view that the world is generally in a better place if dictators fear US-led intervention if they treat their people too badly, and dissidents everywhere can hope that they might get help if their cause is seen as both strong and just.
I also think a truly multipolar world is far more stable than a US-led order, if and only if the other poles are mostly pluralistic democracies. I think bringing that about is the best thing the US could do to ensure the future flourishing of humanity. In the meantime, though, there are autocratic “poles” to which we are the single greatest counterweight, whatever our flaws.
You and I have had many many conversations about the war in Iraq that started in 2003, and I don't really want to detract from your overall point, but I did feel like it might be time for an update on where I am today, a couple decades later.
Before the war, the single biggest element of my opposition to it was because I thought we needed to finish in Afghanistan first. I just didn't think we could focus on two countries at once. At that time I knew more about Afghanistan than Iraq and my skepticism toward the Iraq invasion wasn't founded on specific hurdles, just a general thought that it would be very difficult to deal with a second large country with no history of pluralist democracy.
But of course, I trained for the Iraq mission and went there, as did most of my social group and my eventual wife. In retrospect, it's clear that it could have gone very differently and those who thought it was always going to be a disaster were wrong. There were multiple points in the early days where if we'd made different choices Iraq would have turned out far better. It's very much an oversimplification on my part, but I would argue that if the old hands in the military and diplomatic corps had run the show the way they wanted rather than following the Rumsfeld/Wolfowitz path, then Iraq would probably have followed a more Bosnian path.
So in 2024 I would say that Rumsfeld at al. were wrong and effectively sabotaged the Iraq mission, but I was also wrong; we absolutely could have done both Iraq and Afghanistan. It would have cost more up front, but the overall costs would have been lower, not to mention that the international view of American power would be very different today. I think most common critiques of the Iraq war are pretty off base, but the common feeling that whatever happened showed that American power could not be trusted to handle things competently was generally correct*.
And I mourn the loss of the authority and reputation we'd had in our hyper power moment of the 1990s. It's remarkable the good it did the world.
*To be fair, if the US had done as well as I think we could have, people would still say that we'd done terribly and Bush might still have been quite unpopular by 2008, but I think over time the difference in fortunes between countries we'd invaded and reconstructed and those who had remained "sovereign" dictatorial states would still have its steady effect on the world.