Fool Me Thrice

Read. This. Article.

UPDATE: And. This. Panel. Bubbles.

Friedman:

The real reason for this war—which was never stated—was to burst what I would call the "terrorism bubble," which had built up during the 1990s.

This bubble was a dangerous fantasy, believed by way too many people in the Middle East. This bubble said that it was OK to plow airplanes into the World Trade Center, commit suicide in Israeli pizza parlors, praise people who do these things as "martyrs," and donate money to them through religious charities. This bubble had to be burst, and the only way to do it was to go right into the heart of the Arab world and smash something—to let everyone know that we, too, are ready to fight and die to preserve our open society. Yes, I know, it's not very diplomatic—it's not in the rule book—but everyone in the neighborhood got the message: Henceforth, you will be held accountable. Why Iraq, not Saudi Arabia or Pakistan? Because we could—period. Sorry to be so blunt, but, as I also wrote before the war: Some things are true even if George Bush believes them.

Hitchens:

Pollack may have been led to overstate the immediate danger from WMD, but he did so on persuasive evidence that was supported by a long history of exorbitant behavior by the Baathists, and on a long history of culpable underreaction by Washington. (There was no comparable inquisition, as I recall, when the intelligence "community" failed to predict, and very nearly failed to report, the invasion of Kuwait. And the antiwar forces cling to their taunt on WMD because every other part of their propaganda and prediction has been utterly exploded.) That's if WMD ever were much of an argument in that quarter. I myself had a different experience from Pollack, in the run-up to the war. I had to debate, every week and sometimes every day, with anti-interventionists who said that Saddam's possession of WMD was a reason NOT to attack or attempt to depose him. I said that the threat was latent not blatant, and that the main "immediate" danger was an off-the-shelf purchase by Iraq from North Korea, and by the way I think I was right. But I was not an elected officeholder in a democratic government in a post-9/11 atmosphere. If I had been, I would certainly have decided to make the worst assumption about any report on Saddam's capacity for lethality, and I would have been operating at all times on the presumption of guilt. As a civilian, I would have wanted to criticize any Western government that did not err deliberately on this side.

Another way of phrasing this is to remember the line taken by the late Dr. David Kelly, sad subject of the Hutton inquiry in Britain. In an article written just before his death, this experienced inspector stated that you could have genuine inspections only by way of regime change. This essentially commonsensical view, which has been seconded by other veteran inspectors such as Rolf Ekeus and David Kay, takes account of the notorious Iraqi deception and concealment programs; the failure to comply at any point with U.N. resolutions; the sequestration of Iraqi scientists; and the preservation of secret funds, documents, and resources in Baghdad against the day when sanctions might be lifted and another bid for superpowerdom be made. Taken together with the secret bargaining (now exposed) with North Korea, this entitles us to speak of a Permanent Threat if not precisely an Imminent One. "Imminence" might have come when Saddam gave way to the Odai/Qusai regime: a prospect that need no longer concern us but that did not concern the antiwar forces even when it was a possibility.

Thus, we now can account more or less for Iraq's lunatic mixture of missing and undeclared weapons, and that in itself is an achievement. Moreover, the Iraqi economy and military are no longer at the disposal of a crime family with well-attested links to piracy and gangsterism, and that too is a gain. Dr. Howard Dean now tells that al-Qaida is in Iraq after all, but only because of President Bush. He is entitled as a private citizen to his touching belief that the connection began only a few months ago: One would not want a president to have been so insouciant if he had had to take the actual decision at the time, and once again I applaud the presumption of guilt, which was equally well-merited.

I love Hitchens writing not to speak of his content...