RSS 2.0 FeedWhy We Really Went To War In Iraq
by Doug MataconisAndrew Sullivan highlights this quote from Dinesh D’Souza’s new book:
Why Iraq? One reason is that after 9/11, a number of leading figures in the Bush administration came to the conclusion that, in the face of a catastrophe of this magnitude, it would not be sufficient to go to Afghanistan and shoot some people on the monkey bars. Rather, America needed to take action in the heart of the Middle East. Remember the old Western movies where John Wayne is called into town as the new sheriff to apprehend a bunch of cattle-stealers? He goes into the bar, where the bad guys are shouting and jeering at him. He doesn’t know who the culprits are, but he finds a couple of obstreperous hoodlums and slams their heads together, or pistol-whips them, and then he walks out of the bar. The message is that there is a new sheriff in town. After 9/11, I believe, the Bush administration wanted to convey this message to the Islamic radicals. In Saddam Hussein, Bush located an especially egregious hoodlum who would become the demonstration project for America’s seriousness and resolve.
Now, D’Souza obviously doesn’t necessarily speak for the Bush Administration, but he is a prominent neoconservative and, when you look at the run-up to and execution of the Iraq War four years ago, the idea that Iraq was really just a “demonstration project” makes more sense than any other justification for war that’s been put forward.
If this is a demonstration project, than it obviously backfired.
Comment by Kevin — March 10, 2007 @ 10:48 amIt had a chance to work. When Libya backed off their WMD program, and Lebanon started getting more independence from Syria, it even looked like it WAS working.
Somewhere along the way, we dropped the ball.
Comment by Brad Warbiany — March 10, 2007 @ 3:30 pmI think where America dropped the ball mostly has to do with partisanship. If leaders in the Democrat Party had put thier differences aside once we had boots on the ground, I think this would be a very different war (imagine if the Democrat leadership was as committed to winning in Iraq as they are to destroying George W. Bush). There are plenty of other areas the Democrats could have attacked the president on besides the war.
The old axim “United we stand, divided we fall” seems to be ringing true. The Islamofascists watch CNN and C-Span. They can see that we don’t have the resolve to finish what we started. They also have patience on thier side, we do not.
Comment by Stephen Littau — March 11, 2007 @ 3:00 am