Mike D’Virgilio makes some good points in his comment on my post outlining "A Classical Liberal View of the Iraq War." Mike writes,
I believe we were absolutely right to oust Saddam. I think most who call themselves classical liberals agreed. Once we were rid of the man, were we supposed to pack up and leave and say "Good luck"? No nation building for us.
This is certainly not a conclusion that I entertain lightly. I concede that a case can be made that toppling Saddam was justified by his offenses against us, although I cannot see it as very convincing. Some well-placed bombs in Libya caused the formerly bellicose Col. Khadaffi to stop supporting terrorism, and although Saddam Hussein seems to have had greater ambitions, a few more well-placed bombs would probably have accomplished the same there.
Moreover, even if we concede that ejecting Saddam Hussein from power was justified, limitations on engagement should have been clear. After a decent period of staying on to get a new government in power and on its feet, any possibly justifiable military involvement for us there was surely finished.
Our government’s job is to protect the American people from imminent or at least truly plausible threats. That means nothing more nor less than destroying our opponents or intimidating them into inaction. Toppling Saddam surely accomplished that, if he was truly a threat to us.
Yes, once "rid of the man" we should indeed have packed up and said "Good luck." That is all that we could rightly do. And that is what the American people expected the Bush administration to do, which is why his poll ratings fell so swiftly and stubbornly. The idea was that we would get rid of Saddam Hussein, hand the keys to a new government, and then let the country work out its future according to its own desires. We would help them set things in place, but then we would go. It would be their country and their problems, not ours.
That was what I understood Bush to be suggesting in his initial justification of this venture, and I strongly believe that that is what most Americans thought he meant. And if that is so, the Bush administration is responsible for either not being clear about its true aims or changing its plan after it got the people of the United States committed to intervention. Neither of those options reflects well on our government or the people who elected it.
I understand that leaving Iraq at this point could make us seem weak. However, we are going to have to leave at some time, and whenever we do, that country is probably going to be a mess. Our concern must be our own national interest, and our interest is surely best served by taking a principled approach to foreign affairs and tending to our own very significant problems.
In addition, going hard after Al Qaeda (which most certainly is justified) would mitigate any impression of weakness, and a strong and appropriate response against the next nation or extranational group that harmed us would prove that we are willing to stand behind our principles and use our great power when we are wronged, while also showing that we respect other nations’ sovereignty just as we expect and indeed require them to respect ours.
Sam, thanks for the further explanation. I would have to say given this I probably would not be considered a classical liberal in this regard. It seems to me that your argument is too wedded to your CL presuppositions.
For instance, you say that “a few well placed bombs” might have done the job against Saddam as they had against Khadaffi. This is completely facile in my opinion. It’s an assertion with no basis in fact and completely unfalsafiable. And glossing over Saddam’s “greater ambitions” is in some ways disengenuous. Do not some of these ambitions which you don’t define impact America’s self interest?
And I have one question related to how long we were supposed to stay or not stay. What about Al Qaeda? You seem to be saying let’s leave Iraq then we can go hard after Al Qaeda. What do you think we are doing in Iraq? Lawrence Kaplan at the New Republic makes it very clear that we are very much “going hard” after AQ right now: http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=w070430&s=kaplan050107
And you say we have to leave Iraq sometime. Well I would hope so, but we’re still in Germany, Japan and Korea. Just as we continue to have national self interest in those countries, we will most likely continue to in Iraq for a very long time.
Unfortunately I have to get back to work, but I think the CL position is a bit too close to isolationism for my taste. And it seems so wedded to doing the “right thing” by its lights that it distorts the terrorist threat that faces us. Or more accurately down plays it.
This is a very interesting debate with no easy answers, even if somehow we figure out what the right thing to do is.