Much has been said about this grim milestone: 2,000 U.S. forces dead in Iraq. Much has also been said about the Bushies’ innumerable lies and blunders. Andres Kupfer, in the comments to this earlier post of mine, holds that these Americans did not die in vain, and he makes just about the only reasonable case left:
…my take on this is that of a utilitarian: the war was worth it because it liberated the Iraqi people, despite the moral flaws of Bush and Blair and despite their use of a liberation rethoric that made my ears ache at times.
The decision to go to war was of course inspired by self-interest, as most foreign policy is, but that doesn’t invalidate the end result: the Iraqi people are not living under a tyrant any longer.
I agree that this outcome is not trivial, and the willingness of Iraqis to brave insurgent threats and go to the polls should still be celebrated. And yet even the hawkish Lawrence Kaplan has described the new Iraqi constitution as “an uninspiring document.” It remains to be seen what will replace Baathism in Iraq for the long term. If Shiite ascendancy results in an Iraq/Iran alliance, this could spell trouble in light of Ahmadenijad’s disgusting remarks on Israel. A theocratic Iraq, or an Iraq that pumps its revenues straight into Halliburton’s coffers, is not much to celebrate. It beats mass graves, but it’s a far cry from true and lasting liberation.
Yet I remain troubled by the stance of some in the antiwar movement who choose to view the insurgency as legitimate. In this commentary by Philip Weiss in New York magazine, a Gold Star mother named Tia Steele speaks about the loss of her stepson, David Branning. “David was shot in the throat by someone defending their country,” she said at a recent antiwar demo. I’ll readily acknowledge that I have no business telling Steele how to understand her loss, but I will say this: Plunging Iraq deliberately into chaos and slaughtering indiscriminately is a strange way of “defending their country.” (As I’ve noted before, Weiss’s piece makes no mention of the nefarious role of ANSWER in today’s antiwar movement.)
I think it’s clear that U.S. troops need to leave Iraq. But everyone who advocates withdrawal needs to ponder what will follow.
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