Would We Have Done It?
If we knew in 2003 what we know now in 2008 about the invasion of Iraq, would we have done it?
Jeff Jacoby writing in the Boston Globe thinks so:
So what does hindsight counsel today? That Iraq is a pointless quagmire – or that it is a costly but winnable war, in which patience, tenacity, and smarts have a good chance of succeeding?Hindsight isn’t always 20-20, particularly in wartime, when early expectations of an easy rout can give way to an unexpectedly long and bloody grind – and when victory has so often been achieved only after persevering through strategic debacles, intelligence failures, and wrenching battlefield losses.
There are no guarantees in Iraq. As with every war, we will know for sure how it ends only after it ends. But an effort that so many critics sourly have called the worst foreign-policy blunder in American history – the drive to emancipate Iraq from a monstrous and dangerous dictatorship and transform it into a reasonably civilized, law-abiding democracy – looks increasingly like a mission nearly accomplished. Had we known six years ago what we know today, would we have done it? Differently, no doubt. But we would have done it.
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