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March 20, 2006

What Is the Tragedy of the Iraq War?

What is the tragedy of the Iraq invasion, according to Tim Hames of the Times of London?

A. Tens of thousands of Iraqis, Americans, and Brits have died.
B. The result of the invasion is a civil war pitting Sunnis against Shiites.
C. There will be no more invasions of foreign countries anytime soon.

The correct answer is C. As Hames writes:

The tragedy of what went wrong in Iraq, therefore, is that the failure to locate WMD has made action against Iran or North Korea far harder to advance to Western public opinion. . . .

The final tragedy is that while many will prosper within Iraq over the next three years, the price of inept peacetime policies between 2003 and 2005 is that there will be no more Iraqs in the foreseeable future. To that extent, the Stop the War coalition, assisted, ironically, by the Pentagon, will be satisfied.

To Hames this means that all of the wonderful things the U.S. and U.K. have done for Iraq will not be extended to Iran, Syria, North Korea, and other Evil Incarnates. Too bad. I'm sure the citizens of those countries will be disappointed to learn that they will not be losing houses, neighbors, and loved ones to American "smart" bombs.

To those of us who believe that "one death is too many"--as Rush Limbaugh derisively described antiwar folks today just before bringing the Hames piece to his listeners' attention--it's excellent news. We can only hope that Hames's analysis is correct even as we disagree with his opinion that more war is what the world needs.

Posted by Mike Tennant at March 20, 2006 01:05 PM

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