On War as a Legitimate Tool of Policy

Brace yourselves for the fact that even if the war continues to go well, there will be plenty on the left who will not be willing to acquiesce to the idea that the policy was sound. They will continue to bemoan the loss of the inspections regime, they will continue to rue the loss of "the institutions of collective security" (the UN, NATO, etc.--you know, the institutions which have prevented all war and bloodshed until George W. Bush became President), and they will, undoubtedly, continually point to civilian deaths even if the numbers are far smaller than they predicted, and even if the basic response of the Iraqi people is positive (I can hear it now, "But at what cost, Peter?").

Part of what makes me consider this issue (aside from the simple fact that it is true) is that I have an anti-war colleagues who will be unlikely to fully admit that war can accomplish just goals. I was struck by a comment made in one conversation that I had where reference was made to seeing the bombings on TV and noting how "horrible" it was. And with the follow-up comment: "but I guess that's how war is." The thing that struck me about the comment was not that war isn't horrible, it is, but rather the seeming lack of acknowledgment that while bombings are bad, living under a totalitarian dictator is far worse. In other words, the comments in question, and much of the anti-warites criticisms in general, seem to begin from the premise that ignores the horrors of pre-war Iraq for the common citizen.

I am not arguing that liberation is the main goal of the Bush administration, as this is primarily a national security operation. However, the anti-warites tend to start their arguments from the basis that the war itself will inflict great damage on the Iraqi civilian population. If the predicates for their arguments are based on issues of civilian well-being, then it would seem that an honest argument would have to take into consider pre-war, during war, and post-war conditions to make a cogent and rational argument about the rightness or wrongness of the bombing. However, this appears not to be the case with many of the war's critics.

In summary, those on the left who really had the interests of the Iraqi people in mind as the basis of their anti-warism will have to change their minds ex post, if the war goes well. Otherwise they will be exposed as being intellectually dishonest.

Posted by Steven Taylor at March 22, 2026 10:31 AM | TrackBack