Positive Liberty

George Will — one of conservatism’s two indispensable men — is not yet ready to declare the Iraq effort a defeat. In this he differs from William F. Buckley, conservatism’s other indispensable man, who seems willing to give failure a try. Of course, Will’s not exactly sanguine, either:

When late in the spring of 1940 people of southeastern England flocked across the Channel in their pleasure craft and fishing boats to evacuate soldiers trapped on Dunkirk beaches, euphoria swept Britain. So Prime Minister Winston Churchill sternly told the nation: “We must be very careful not to assign to this deliverance the attributes of a victory. Wars are not won by evacuations.”

Or by curfews, such as the one that cooled the furies that engulfed Iraq after the bombing last week of a Shiite shrine. Wars are not won simply by facing facts, but facing them is a necessary prerequisite.

Last week, in the latest iteration of a familiar speech (the enemy is “brutal,” “we’re on the offensive,” “freedom is on the march”) that should be retired, the president said, “This is a moment of choosing for the Iraqi people.” Meaning what? Who is to choose, and by what mechanism? Most Iraqis already “chose” — meaning prefer — peace. But in 1917 there were only a few thousand Bolsheviks among 150 million Russians — and the Bolsheviks succeeded in hijacking the country for seven decades.

From a purely intellectual standpoint, the most frustrating thing about our Iraqi adventure is that its failure (or, at best, its indefinitely postponed success) proves so little. Our situation establishes the truth of neither the pro- nor the anti-war position as they existed in early 2003. Strictly from a national security standpoint, it seems entirely unclear whether the United States is better or worse off for having acted as it did. It’s even a toss-up for the Iraqis, who now face constant factional violence — with, let’s be honest, precious few genuine good guys — rather than a brutal dictatorship. Given the choice between one dictator and a violent feud among several would-be dictators, it’s hard to say just what I would prefer. The only bright spot is the prosperity in Kurdistan, which may carry geopolitical troubles of its own. And for both the U.S. and Iraq, the removal of Saddam Hussein is only a strategic victory insofar as nothing worse replaces him — which, to put it mildly, remains to be seen.

Where those who opposed the war may want to point to the present situation as proof that they were right all along — three years and we still can’t drive to the Baghdad airport? — they cannot: No reasonable observer could conclude that the administration ran the war at all competently, and thus the hawks’ proposed experiment never really got a fair trial. To condemn the hawkish position ex ante based on what we’re seeing right now is tempting, for me as for most other doves, but I think it’s unfair.

Meanwhile, most hawks seem unwilling even to acknowledge that they have been stymied (if not entirely defeated) at an unfair trial: Witness Vodkapundit and others (h/t Crooked Timber) declaring that an Iraqi civil war would be a good thing. Or, as George Will reprinted from one of their number, “This isn’t a war. It’s violent nation-building.”

Violent nation-building: How quickly our sights have fallen. It seems like only last week we were all hoping for a free, stable, and democratic Iraq. I wonder how many Republicans would have signed onto “violent nation-building” if Bush had run on it as a campaign promise in 2000. Our foreign policy, Bush might have said, will be just like Clinton’s, but more: More intervention, more nation-building, and above all, more bungling. It’s unsurprising, I think, that his poll numbers are so low; the only surprising thing about it is that most of his base still hasn’t abandoned him — and this last should stand as a testament to how many yellow-dog party loyalists remain in America.

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