Botched Neocon Wars? Hardly

Ideological simplification is one of the biggest problems we're seeing with all the intense debate over Libya and the wider "Arab Spring." One example is Andrew Sullivan's little piece that stops just short of slamming neocons as fascist. Sully draws on C. Bradley Thompson's recent book on neoconservatism, but amplifies the implications without the theoretical context. For background, see Thompson's recent piece, "Neoconservatism Unmasked." It's pretty abstract, but if Thompson's right, there's a lot in my personal philosophy that's at odds with the neoconservative program hypothesized there. That said, much of the current debate over intervention in Libya hinges on the argument that the Iraq war was a colossal blunder of world historical proportions. It's the progressive meme that the Bush administration blew the mission after the initial post-conflict phase of operations. The photo-op on the USS Abraham Lincoln came to symbolize the hubris of an administration many argued was hell-bent on war and profanely dismissive of international norms. There's no convincing ideological partisans otherwise, of course, so it's probably not worth it to make the effort. Yet real-world events have repeatedly shown that the Bush administration's foreign policy was frequently masterful and often quite successful. There's been a long slide in Afghanistan's political efficacy, which is why we're still there today, after ten years of war. But in Iraq, the lodestar for progressive attacks on the "Bush-Cheney cabal," the revolutionary changes in the Middle East have elevated Baghdad to regional diplomatic prominence. See New York Times, "Ready or Not, Iraq Ascends to Take Helm of Arab Bloc":

BAGHDAD — After Libya was suspended from the Arab League last month, de facto leadership ended up coincidentally in the hands of Iraq, the Arab nation with the most experience — much of it painful — with a foreign-led military campaign against an unpopular dictator.



For all of that still unsettled pain, the foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari — in his new capacity as head of the Arab League — rushed off to Paris last Friday evening to join Western and Arab allies, where he argued passionately in favor of action against Libya, citing the American no-fly zone in northern Iraq that protected the Kurdish population from Saddam Hussein in the years before the American invasion here, according to a senior official who took part in the Paris deliberations.



And soon, Iraqi leaders, who are facing their own protest movement, plan to use their own troublesome democracy, still bloody and inchoate, as a showcase for Middle East countries. Iraq is taking on a larger diplomatic role in regional affairs as host of the group’s annual summit meeting — while assuming the rotating presidency of the league — in May.



“If there’s a political message, it’s that Iraq is back to play a major and positive role in the Arab region,” said Labid Abawi, the deputy foreign minister who has led a committee to prepare Baghdad for the summit meeting.



“We take pride in that Iraq has already exceeded all these other Arab countries in establishing a democratic regime,” he said. “Now, we can say yes, we are on the right track, and other Arab countries can follow suit in establishing a democratic regime.”

There's more at the link, but I want to reiterate the point above: No amount of evidence, not even Iraqi testimony on the country's democratic consolidation, will wrest from idiot progressives the claim that toppling Saddam Hussein was a debacle. It's all they have, along with endless allegations of racism and the demonization of Israel. And to respond to simpleton Mike Tuggle, who asked if I'd lost my "'neo-conservative illusions' as a result of the botched Neocon Wars?," the answer is no --- because I don't have any illusions to lose.