The Light Finally Begins to Dawn

I've said from day one that invading Iraq was a bad decision - not just because it seemed so painfully obvious that the case against Hussein was mostly fabrication, but also because of the practical implications of trying to occupy and "tame" a country like Iraq.

It seems that a few politicians in the states are beginning to see the light - or are finally finding the spine necessary to say it, at least.

Says Senator Reid:

"This war is a serious situation. It involves the worst foreign policy mistake in the history of this country," Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nevada, told CNN's "Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer."

and Senator Hagel:

Sen. Chuck Hagel, a Nebraska Republican who has been one of the war's most outspoken critics, told Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in January that President Bush's plan to send 21,500 more troops to Iraq "represents the most dangerous foreign policy blunder in this country since Vietnam."

Meanwhile, the bunch currently roosting in the White House continue to assert that war in Iraq is a "Good Thing":

White House spokesman Tony Snow told CNN he disagrees with Reid's characterization.

"In point of fact, it was important to get Saddam Hussein out of power," Snow told "Late Edition."

"Yeah, the war is tough. But the solution is not to get out. It is to provide the kinds of resources and reinforcements our forces need to get the job done, and at the same time say to the Iraqis, 'You guys gotta step up.'"

It was important to get Hussein out of power? Really? Seems to me that the only people who believe that are those who fell for Bush's fabrications about Iraq. I'm not saying that Hussein was a good leader, nor am I defending him - that's not my point at all.

The point is a more serious moral and ethical issue - Under what grounds do foreign powers have the right to intervene in the affairs of another state? When you are the "biggest elephant" in the herd, does the right of intervention change?

Were the now demonstrably false allegations of "WMDs" in Iraq sufficient to suggest that intervention was needed? Was Hussein's human rights record worth invading over? Personally, I don't think so. A decade or more of economic sanctions had pushed the Iraqi economy into a precarious place, and perhaps had isolated the country sufficiently that, like Castro's Cuba, it would be very unlikely to actually pose a significant threat to anybody.