I don’t find the Oedipal drama between Bush père and fils to be all that obscure, frankly. It’s true that a lot of the armchair psychologizing about the family seemed glib or fanciful to me a couple of years ago, but as time goes on I really believe there’s something to it—maybe because, as you say, there are few other explanations that even remotely make sense anymore. After 6 years, we know Junior to be a petty, resentful and meanspirited little man, one who viewed his father’s defeat to Bill Clinton in ‘92 in very personal terms (i.e., the way he views just about everything, from the looks of it). Iraq offered GWB the opportunity to transcend his wimpy father in the two ways that mattered: by “getting” Saddam, and by winning a 2nd term running as a “war president.”

And if you don’t like armchair psychologizing: there’s always the permanent bases. They want a permanent military presence in the region, which the Saudis used to provide. The Saudis wanted us out, and an alternative was needed. “Why don’t they just declare victory and get out?” profoundly misses the point: I think it’s increasingly obvious that “getting out” simply wasn’t part of the plan, at all.

That is how the Dems would have fought this war better: by never considering it, because there was never much of a reason to.

This is the question I was asking, over and over again, during the run-up to war: how did Iraq jump to the top of the list, under any set of criteria imaginable?

Iraq’s supposed (and unquestionably non-nuclear) WMDs were far from being the most dangerous threat in the world. Loose nukes in the former USSR, near-nuclear powers in North Korea and Iran, and an unreliable (and already nuclear) Pakistan, let alone al-Qaeda, were all ahead of Iraq. Saddam certainly wasn’t the worst dictator in the world; would you rather live in Iraq under Saddam, or North Korea under Kim Jong Il? (Easy choice, isn’t it? And we haven’t even considered African hellholes like Zimbabwe under Mugabe.) Iraq was far from the most likely candidate to be forcibly democratized; Burma (with a government in waiting) and Cuba (with an educated, relatively homogeneous population) were way ahead there.

We may never know the real reason that Bush (or Cheney, or whoever really made the decision that Iraq should be next) picked Iraq. The only reasons that make any sense have to do with Iraqi oil reserves, but there seems to be some sort of Godwin-like law in operation here: if one says this war was fought for reasons having much to do with oil, one is labeled a paranoid, and ignored.

I don’t understand this: it may have made apparent sense in late 2002, when most of us still couldn’t quite believe Bush would drag us into a war for essentially no reason at all, but after the other possible nontrivial reasons have been considered and discarded, what else do you have? It’s either oil, or stuff having to do with the Bush father-son relationship (revenging the assassination attempt, or one-upping the old man, or whatever), or motivations that are even more obscure.

The intervention in Kosovo was de facto “illegal”, but given the alternatives to war and the ramifications of non-intervention, the legality can go hang.

Knowing what we know now, what would you say to a coalition of willing partners absent a UNSC resolution deploying in Rwanda circa April 1994? Imagine just under 3×9/11 happening everyday for 100 days and then imagine not preventing that for want of the agreement of, for example, the Russian ambassador to the UN.

First, it is not the case that our occupation of Iraq has made civil society weaker. Indeed, quite the contrary is the case. A prolonged civil insurgency of the kind we find there can only be sustained by strong non-governmental institutions. The problem is that civil society doesn’t always have the kinds of connotations we often ascribe to it. A strong civil society that is based on functional entities with ties to an already established sovereign state can be a real boon to democratization; a strong civil society tied to primordial entities in a situation where no sovereign government has appeared means … well, Iraq.

Second, the answer to the dilemma posed by the war is a simple one: follow international law and keep your hands to yourself. I could see some good reasons for invading Iraq and some real good reasons not to, but I ALWAYS opposed the war. Why? Because there was insufficient justification under international law to prosecute it. There is a reason why the nation-state system has a “you punch cows on your ranch your way” rule and has developed legal principles to support it: war between nation-states, especially given the destructive power of modern weapons, is an inherently dangerous and unpredictable business that everyone, no matter how powerful or morally justified, should avoid unless it is provably necessary to maintain national security. The Afghan war was and I supported it, despite the inevitable blowback. The Iraq wasn’t and I never supported it. I now get to say I told you so – at length – to everyone I know who argued otherwise.

And a fat lot of good that does me or our country.

Ok so I know this is ot, but please cut the US-centric parochial assumptions. For some of us “our own civil war” was between 1642 and 1651 (roughly speaking) others had a civil war between 1922 and 1923.

In Iraq, there is not only widespread disrespect for the rule of law but serious disagreement over what law should be. It is always more difficult to halt violence once it has started than it is to nip it in the bud. Iraq was a failure to establish rule of law and the failure to establish a political process that was a viable alternative to violence. The belief of Rummy and Bush, that respect for rule of law in Iraq would be a given, led to a failure to plan and implement. Violence spiraled out of control and became a volatile mix of political, criminal and tribal fued violence. The US authority fails to understand the complexity and therefore is having difficulting halting the violence.

Your question can be addressed by asking, “What resources and policies would have been necessary to establish respect for rule of law in Iraq?” and “Could the US have marshalled those forces and brought them to bear in Iraq in a timely manner?”

In general, wars are a bad idea because it starts a violence that is difficult to halt, it is destructive and it is much more expensive than the alternatives. For what it is costing us to fight the war in Iraq, we could have bribed the entire population. A better strategy would be to support international institutions that support human rights and keep a consistent set of economic carrots and sticks to move governments to better human rights positions. Occasionally, governments (Milosovic, Rwanda, Pol Pot) engage in such massive violations of human rights or that a crisis ensues or governments foment violence against other countries (Taliban) so there is no choice but to take them out. Taking them out actually prevents violence or puts a stop to already out of control ethnic cleansing or other violence. War should be reserved for only those truly “last resort” cases. Iraq was not a last resort case (neither are Iran or NKorea) so other strategies should have been pursued more vigorously first.

And then we should demand that they be honest about it into the bargain.

“What will it be, a civil war or another strong man? Either way it’s a complete failure.”

A complete failure to achieve what they told us they were going to war precisely to accomplish. Unless, perish the thought, they were being dishonest about it.

“…where was the plan to put Iraqis to work rebuilding their own country…?”

Ask the boys at PNAC.
Maybe it was hidden under the paper that talked about reducing Iraq to an impotent fragmenting body of internicene chaos.
One thing’s for sure – Hizbullah’s not getting much support from that quarter these days.

Which makes me think this meme about Sistani et al being Iranian puppets is not quite true. And (along with the fact that Saddam – yes, a fruitloop – retained power for 30 years, most of those years with relatively little oppression) it also made me sceptical in advance of the claim that his power base in the population was very narrow.

It’s just not true that Saddam’s regime was “Sunni based”.

Without getting into semantics of exactly what constitutes “Sunni based”, the broader point is that you are downplaying the pre-war Shia-Sunni antipathy to support your assertion that something approximating civil war was not inevitable following Saddam’s removal.

You claim the “kernels of truth” whence this myth of a “Sunni based regime” sprang are:

1. Most of the very highest echelons of Saddam’s power structure were old trusted friends from street-fighting days in Tikrit, and Tikrit is a Sunni town.

2. Most of the victims of the very worst of Saddam’s brutality were Shia, because the 1992 revolution was put together by Shia organisations.

I’m particularly interested in the second of these. Specifically, why do you suppose there was a “Shia” rebellion if Saddam’s regime could not be justifiably termed “Sunni based”? How many Sunnis joined the 1992 revolt?

Saddam was a fruitloop who ordered the murder of members of his inner-circle, including family members, and the specific denomination of his victims was indeed irrelevant to him. Notwithstanding this, Saddam’s regime was “Sunni based” as any reasonably objective reader would understand the term, which probably explains why no Sunni organizations joined the 1992 revolt.