It really was a period of extraordinary intellectual dishonesty.

Did you just say that the Weimar Constitution was not in any way imposed by the victors? If it wasn’t, then I’m wrong on that point.

The analogy is that Germany got a liberal constitution in 1919, but it failed because so few people wanted a liberal constitution. By 1932 2/3 of the Germans supported anti-democratic parties., and as I have said, even the other 1/3 seems to have been half-hearted.

Is it far-fetched to point out that in Iraq, those who want a liberal democratic constitution are also few, and that those who would work to destroy it are many?

I use the 1919 example because the Iraq-democracy hawks use the post-1945 successes as an argument for their plan, and I’m just introducing the 1919 failure into the equation. This is hardly a profound idea, but not really as unintelligible or stupid as you claim.

However, my studies have been pretty haphazard and from this point on I will defer to anyone who knows more than I do. Novakant does not seem to be such a person, however.

Expanding a dogmatic rejection of historical analogies to greater length doesn’t make it any more compelling. A lot of writing about history is analogy, and some analogies are good and some bad. It’s quite possible that my original analogy wasn’t that great, but specific arguments against what I said are more convincing.

well John, I’m certainly not incapable of drawing historical comparisons, in fact, most people are capable of doing so:

cheerypick a historical event that has some similarities to a current event, play up those similarities, play down the differences and disregard dissimilar historical events, present it as proof for some generalization you have made long before looking at those events

I could do this all day but I find it very rarely sheds light on anything but the preconceptions of those engaging in such undertakings, so why bother

as for Germany, I don’t see how the Weimar Republic had been imposed by foreign powers (the reparations were, but the republic was very much homegrown), so a comparison to Iraq is strange, to be frank I’m not sure what you’re talking about;

your general point, that you can’t force democracy on people against their will is disproven by post WW2 Germany, because it was forced on them, so it comes down to how we define “against their will” – now it’s true that the Germans were defeated und exhausted and would have accepted almost anything a that point, but a modern democracy certainly wasn’t what most people wanted either (see Stauffenberg’s plans) and while they played along nicely for lack of any alternative, significant parts of german society also tacitly rejected the new system and tried to retain as many parts of both the Kaiserreich and the Nazi era as they could – until the sh#t hit the fan in the sixties

And yes – the French aristocracy could save their necks by giving away some of their assets and privileges.

John is right that most of the outcomes can theoretically be negotiated, and they often are (for example: de Klerk, Gorby), but it requires realistic assessment on the both sides.

Yes, and if the Nazis had only agreed to reduce themselves to rubble and help the US initiate the Pax Americana…

And if the antebellum slaveholders had only agreed to abolish slavery and reduce southern states from being among the richest in per capita income pre-war to being among the poorest post-war…

And if the French aristocracy had only agreed to abolish themselves and give all their assets to the French masses…

And if Saddam had only agreed to put himself on trial for crimes against humanity…

Too many of the people who wrote (often movingly and with real insight) about their betrayal by the warmaking powers…without acknowledging that they had themselves been enthusiastic boosters of the whole thing earlier. Or if they do, they couch it purely in the language of deception by others, and not of having made bad choices for which they are responsible. We’re getting this again now with regard to the invasion and occupation of Iraq. The body of work by people who say “I backed the desires and people who made this possible, and I chose badly” is quite small. Presumably it will be after any such conflict; I just found the parallels between these two cases pretty striking.

Posted by John Quiggin

Which is only semi-relevant; the most relevant thing is how well do the decision-makers come out? For the USA’s latest war, Bush II, the GOP and much of the economic/religious crony system have done quite well.