Oops

In the first couple of years following the invasion of Iraq-when it became clear that the Bush administration was less than honest about the evidence it used to advocate war-it became popular for so-called liberal "hawks" who supported the invasion to publicly apologize for that support. As of late, it's become popular for conservative supporters of the war to come out against the war, or at least the Bush effort to fight the war. So we've heard from the likes of Andrew Sullivan and William Kristol, telling us that they were wrong about going to war, or that the war hasn't been fought "seriously", etc., etc. Christopher Hitchens joins the ranks, telling us what he would do differently if he could go back in time and change a thing or two:

So, now I come at last to my ideal war. Let us start with President Bush's speech to the United Nations on Sept. 12, 2002, which I recommend that you read. Contrary to innumerable sneers, he did not speak only about WMD and terrorism, important though those considerations were. He presented an argument for regime change and democracy in Iraq and said, in effect, that the international community had tolerated Saddam's deadly system for far too long. Who could disagree with that? Here's what should have happened. The other member states of the United Nations should have said: Mr. President, in principle you are correct. The list of flouted U.N. resolutions is disgracefully long. Law has been broken, genocide has been committed, other member-states have been invaded, and our own weapons inspectors insulted and coerced and cheated. Let us all collectively decide how to move long-suffering Iraq into the post-Saddam era. We shall need to consider how much to set aside to rebuild the Iraqi economy, how to sponsor free elections, how to recuperate the devastated areas of the marshes and Kurdistan, how to try the war criminals, and how many multinational forces to ready for this task. In the meantime—this is of special importance—all governments will make it unmistakably plain to Saddam Hussein that he can count on nobody to save him. All Iraqi diplomats outside the country, and all officers and officials within it, will receive the single message that it is time for them to switch sides or face the consequences. Then, when we are ready, we shall issue a unanimous ultimatum backed by the threat of overwhelming force. We call on all democratic forces in all countries to prepare to lend a hand to the Iraqi people and assist them in recovering from more than three decades of fascism and war.

In other words...nothing! The problem isn't anything we did; it's that the Europeans didn't support us enough in the rush to war. If only they would have given us unanimous backing, we could have made Saddam see the light and give up power, or the invasion could have been massive and overwhelming and the reconstruction thorough, swift and complete! Damn those Europeans for not supporting us as they should have!

If like me you think Hitchens is full of shit (again), you would be right. Everything we've seen since the invasion, every single bit of evidence of Saddam's WMD program (or lack thereof) or his connections to terrorism (or again, the lack thereof) has demonstrated that if anything, the rest of the world and many Americans trusted Bush and his cronies too much! If they and we had come out overwhelmingly against invasion, preventing the fiasco that has been the "reconstruction" of Iraq, perhaps in fact we would have adopted a different approach aimed at pushing Saddam from power yet leaving Iraq intact, so that in fact they would be in a position to benefit from billions in reconstruction aid, and not simply wishing that terrorists and insurgents would stop shooting at them and each other. You won't hear me arguing that if we had done so, Saddam would surely have fallen from power and Iraq would have blossomed into peace and democracy. But surely the worst thing that would have happened is Iraq descending into civil war, as it wants to do now, only without 150,000 of our soldiers in the middle, and without it being our fault!

I suspect this is a close as Hitchens will get to admitting to being wrong about anything. In his article he continues to tout "investigations" into the WMD programs and the terrorism connections; at least many conservatives have long since given even that pretense up. Unfortunately, Hitchens can afford to be wrong about this and anything he pleases. After all, he doesn't live in war-torn Iraq.