The American adventure in Iraq is now five years old and an honest analysis is definitely necessary at this juncture, especially with an election approaching. I remember very vividly the debate leading up to the war and I remember just as vividly my own rabid support for the Wilsonian expedition. I will only speak in my defense on that matter briefly, and say that I was caught up in immature identity politics, where the Republican Party, it's leaders and it's interests became my own. My misguided support is also an example of the danger of a strict and rigid ideology, completely out of touch with reality. Even the most hawkish of Reagan administration officials knew a bad investment when they saw one and were willing to cut their losses (see: Reagan's withdrawal from Lebanon after a terrorist attack on a Marine barracks). Reagan's first inclination was that withdrawal would lead to Lebanese chaos and the "end of Lebanon" (sound familiar?) but further examination revealed the reality of Middle Eastern politics to the Gipper as terrifyingly irrational.

First I will address several abstract absolutes used by the hawks of war. These absolutes are used to reinforce their practical and realistic goals in the campaign, and are normally considered incontrovertible benefits of the Iraq campaign. In reality they only serve to mislead and misinform in the inevitable instance that the pragmatic reasoning no longer holds water. In Iraq, hindsight has shown us that when WMDs were not found and when claims of Iraqi support of terrorism came under dispute, the fool-proof fallback was the righteous claim that we are "spreading freedom" and "defeating tyranny." But the forefathers of conservative theory warned against broad generalities such as these. Freedom is noble and desirable, no doubt, and tyranny equally heinous and undesirable. But circumstances lend the necessary context to every political measure, and Iraq is no exception. Indeed, polling in the country has shown that although free elections and civil liberties are surely a desire of the Iraqi people, being bombed into oblivion and having all sources of order completely dismantled was not a cost the people were willing to pay. Free men are surely happy men, but in order for the sustainability of a system of government, prudence and tradition are the best indicators for a peaceful future.

The unbending loyalty held by Mr. Bush and his cohorts to the legitimacy of democracy would eventually (if you will pardon the pun) blow up in their respected faces. Middle Eastern democracy advanced the interests of many Arabs, but unfortunately it advanced the interests of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Palestine, and al-Sadr in Iraq. In fact, if any singular action can be pointed to that has had a more damaging impact on the "Holy Grail: Liberty" than the use of democratic means by evil groups in the middle east to gain power and influence and fight American interests, I would like to be notified of such an action.

The circumstances of the Iraq adventure could be argued for hours, and frankly most evidence is on the side of those of us who wish to leave. But in the end circumstances are meaningless to the aforementioned (and brilliantly defined) "true believers." We are fighting "Islamofascism" say the war advocates, and in Iraq we are killing the radicals pushing a worldwide caliphate. On this very blog I once browbeated about the ominous and undefinable threat and how all measures must be taken to extinguish it. But further analysis reveals this threat as a fractured and diverse movement, not unified by any one message or mission. We can find Muslim leaders around the world who have called for the end of America and Israel, for the killing of Christians and Jews, and for the spread of a Muslim civilization, no doubt. But would these words have weight or meaning if Arabs had no evidence of an imposing American hegemon? And are we as a nation to saturation-bomb all souls who hate us? Do all the forces of the world that look upon American power with disdain and anger need to be put in their place?

In the end, in order to buy into the idea of this impending apocalyptic threat, one must completely oversimplify the enemy's motives and interests. Unlike Communism or Nazism, this enemy does not define itself as "Islamofascist" yet the term still stands. It is used to paint groups of completely different origin and cause as unified by their ties to Islam. Indeed that is the one unifying feature shared by these enemies. We are to believe that Sunni Islamist terrorists, Shi'ite religious radicals, Ba'athist party insurgents, Palestinian nationalists, Syrian expansionists, Hezbollah's political movement in Lebanon, and most importantly the government of Iran are all of the same brand and are all enemies to be battled to the death. In light of the fact that the finest foreign policy minds in the country can not decide upon a more definable enemy, permit me to suggest the possibility that the terminology of this war is deliberately vague. Vague enough to permit perpetual war anywhere, for any reason, and despite any extenuating circumstances.

These revolutionary expeditions we have taken into foreign lands where reason and fanaticism are indistinguishable continue to hurt us, and will do so for a long time. Billions of dollars have been and will continue to be spent, and fighting men and women, who donated in droves to the most antiwar candidate in the Presidential race, continue to kill and die in the name of a failed experiment. Evidence that this truly is a mess lies in the words of the warmakers; despite all the misinformation sold to the American people and all of the statements and promises that never panned out, the entire argument and discussion regarding our presence in Iraq and the Middle East at large, the argument has been reduced to the following: if we leave, Iraq will fall into chaos and disorder. But this only suggests the following: that the problems caused by our exit are more harmful to our interests than the costs currently endured by both the average American (in dollars) and the fighting American (in blood). I have yet to hear an argument compelling enough to convince me that the costs will be worse after an exit.

And as for the problems that may occur in the region after we leave, the blame for those problems lie with those who pushed falsely and fervently for this war and it's continued escalation. The blood is on their hands, not on the hands of those who wish for Americans to need not kill or be killed for this misguided cause.

The liberal argument for withdrawal tends to be just as misguided and blindly ideological as the argument was to enter the war. Looking back over the past five years, the conservative case for withdrawal is by far the most compelling and prudent course of action. Nearly every other American foreign policy tradition, from Robert Taft isolationism to Eisenhower-style internationalism is more sensible and prudent than Bush-style go-it-alone militarism mixed with rabid nationalism. It is not the time to stubbornly hang on to a mission that has long since come to pass as a failure. It is time to learn from these mistakes and look forward. As Aldous Huxley once wrote, "Rolling in the muck is not the best way of getting clean."

I leave you, as I always do, with the words of a man much smarter than myself:

"Why engage in wars halfway around the world, at incalculable expense in men and money? As Burke, two centuries gone, said of the Pitt government's strategy against revolutionary France (with respect to the Netherlands), 'A war for the Scheldt? A war for a chamberpot!' And later, 'The blood of man should be shed but to redeem the blood of man. The rest is vanity: the rest is crime.'

A war for Kuwait [Baghdad]? A war for an oil-can! The rest is vanity; the rest is crime."
-Russell Kirk