Still Neo, I Guess: The Case for War One Year Later

I started blogging a year ago, just before the invasion of Iraq. One of my first posts laid out what i saw as the case for the war. Looking at it today, i believe that the case remains surprisingly solid.

(I claim no special insight or brilliance on this matter: my post was just one non-warblogger's assessment of the arguments being made in 2002-3003.)

Several points stand out. The case for war did not argue that Saddam's WMDs were an "imminent threat" or that he was involved in the 9-11 attacks. Instead, it argued that he was trying to get WMDs, that containment/sanctions/deterrence were beset with problems of their own, and that waiting was worse than acting. Nothing i've read in the past year refutes that assessment.

Nor has the Iraq war brought the war against al Qaeda to a halt as some claimed it would. We are still rolling up cells and neutralizing their leadership.

The evidence that has come to light since the fall of Saddam bolsters the claim that the UN and France had corrupt motives for opposing the war.

I have to admit that i am surprised that we have not found evidence of WMDs. The intelligence failure is a legitimate cause for concern.

Although i did not include it, i had hoped that a decisive military victory would provide geopolitical leverage against other outlaw regimes. I don't believe that this has been borne out. Certainly Libya's conciliatory moves have been a positive. But that has to be balanced against the difficulties of the occupation and the failure to kill or capture Saddam in the early days of the war.