I prefer Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz to — say — Tony Blair and Jack Straw. They more honest and probably more intelleigent. They are also in a position to be more grown up, since the Blair and Straw cannot tell us their real policies, even after the event: it’s just to embarrassing to say “We need to find out what the Americans want us to do and then do it.”<\/p>\n\n
So the celebrated Wolfowitz quote<\/a> about how they talked up WMD<\/span>s because this was the reason that everyone could agree with, doesn’t shock me at all. They did that, and they are now paying the cost. What does shock me is that he went on to say that the humanitarian or liberal imperialist aspect, which everyone is now stressing, was not in itself a reason enough for the war: “The third [reason] by itself, as I think I said earlier, is a reason to help the Iraqis but it’s not a reason to put American kids’ lives at risk, certainly not on the scale we did it.”<\/p>\n\n The reason this is frightening is simple. That third reason (the second was “terrorism”, relevant only if you’re an Israeli) is going to be all that’s left. And the risk to “American kids” persists for as long as there is an American garrison in Iraq. the long they’re there, the harder it will become to withdraw without conceding a huge victory to their opponents. Our opponents also, since there will be British troops in the American garrison and even if there aren’t, in any global war between Islam and America, we are on the American side, and quite right too.<\/p>\n\n But if one of America’s leading imperialists thinks, even after the war, that the maintenance of empire is not worth “American kids’ lives”, then they’re not going to be very good at imperialism.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I prefer Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz to — say — Tony Blair and Jack Straw. They more honest and probably more intelleigent. They are also in a position to be more grown up, since the Blair and Straw cannot tell us … Continue reading